THE  TARIFF 

AND 

THE  FARMER 

Revised,  1911 

BY 

ARCHIBALD  CUMMINS 


Published,  by 

THE  HAWTHORNE  ASSOCIATION 
Berryville,  Va. 


COPYRIGHT  1911  BY  THE  HAWTHORNE  ASSOCIATION 


COLLINS  &  CO..  PRINTERS, 

628  CHESTNUT  ST..  PHILADELPHIA,  PA 


Blackburn 


331 

twllt 


t»r.  i  <4  \ .  *  $  o 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER 


to 


5 


ro 


The  tariff  question  promises  to  be  the  chief 
question  before  the  country  in  the  years  immedi¬ 
ately  to  come.  It  is  a  most  important  question 
because  the  tariff  laws  affect  so  largely  the  char¬ 
acter  of  our  possessions.  Throughouf  the  land 
there  will  be  discussion  and  contention.  The 
question  will  form  the  division  line  in  politics 
and  voters  will  range  themselves  with  the  party 
which  best  represents  their  views  regardless  of 
old  affiliations.  Ours  is  a  land  of  plenty  but  there 
is  much  discontent  and  unrest.  The  city  resident 
with  small  income  is  in  straits  because  of  the  high 
cost  of  living;  the  factory  workman  finds  that  his 
high  wages  with  difficulty  meet  his  needs;  the 
farmer  feels  the  effect  of  his  diminishing  crops 
and  the  high  prices  he  must  pay  for  the  things  he 
buys;  and  the  banker  questions  the  soundness  of 
our  affairs  and  whether  our  possessions  are  worth 
the  sums  at  which  they  are  valued.  The  factory 
workman  is  beginning  to  doubt  the  virtue  of  his 
tariff  wages  when  exchanged  for  food  and 
clothing  rated  at  tariff  prices;  the  farmer  is 
beginning  to  ask  what  advantage  he  gets  from  the 
tariff  protection  enjoyed  by  the  manufacturer; 
and  the  banker  is  beginning  to  suspect  that  it  is 
the  taint  of  the  tariff  laws  which  casts  a  doubt 
upon  the  value  of  securities. 

The  motive  for  attempting  this  paper  has  been 
two-fold:  first,  my  observation  that  but  few  of 
the  whole  number  of  farmers  have  clear  ideas 
concerning  the  tariff  question,  and  second,  my 
belief  in  the  importance  of  awakening  my  farmer 
friends  to  a  perception  of  the  true  nature  and 
effect  of  the  tariff  laws.  In  preparing  this  paper 
I  have  studied  to  present  the  subject  so  that  my 
readers  cannot  fail  to  understand  what  is  meant 
by  the  tariff  question,  and  to  show  clearly  that 
the  tariff  laws  favor  the  manufacturer  at  the 
expense  of  the  farmer  and  serve  to  carry  over  to 


the  manufacturer  and  the  trader  an  undue  share 
of  the  wealth  of  the  country. 

The  profits  of  farming  when  all  the  farms  of  the 
country  are  taken  into  the  reckoning  are  small. 
Upon  the  best  of  the  lands  the  returns  after  the 
labor  is  allowed  for  reach  five  per  cent.,  but  upon 
the  poorer  of  the  farms  the  crops  do  not  repay  the 
labor  expended.  We  have  heard  much  of  the 
prosperous  farmers  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  but 
our  attention  has  been  seldom  called  to  the  less 
successful  farmers  of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas. 
The  prairie  lands  of  Illinois  are  widely  known. 
They  are  certainly  very  fertile.  In  price  they 
range  from  one  hundred  to  one  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  an  acre  and  there  are  occasional  sales 
at  two  hundred  dollars  an  acre.  Many  of  the 
farms  are  rented,  the  owners  having  moved  to 
town.  The  rents  are  generally  paid  in  money 
and  range  from  six  to  eight  dollars  an  acre.  The 
owners  pay  the  taxes  and  have  left  after  doing  so 
five  per  cent,  as  the  return  or  interest  on  the  money 
in  the  land.  But  the  rich  soil  covers  only  two- 
thirds  of  the  state.  Occupying  the  Southern  one- 
third  is  a  region  of  which  the  soil  is  entirely 
different  from  the  prairie  area.  Its  lack  of 
productiveness  is  indicated  by  the  prices  of  the 
lands.  These  prices  range  from  fifty  dollars  down 
to  five  dollars  an  acre.  Much  of  the  area,  probab¬ 
ly  one-half  of  it,  would  command  not  more  than 
thirty  dollars  an  acre.  It  is  divided  into  small 
farms  upon  which  the  owners  for  the  most  part 
live.  When  the  worth  of  the  labor  of  the  owner 
and  his  family  is  deducted  from  the  sales  of  the 
products  there  is  very  little  left  as  the  income  of  the 
land.  So  if  this  poorer  third  of  the  State  of 
Illinois  is  reckoned  along  with  the  richer  two- 
thirds,  the  average  return  upon  the  land  after  the 
labor  has  been  allowed  for  will  be  considerably 
less  than  five  per  cent.  Iowa  is  a  fine  agricultural 


6 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


TABLE  RELATING  TO  THE  PURCHASE  OF 
HOUSEHOLD  GOODS. 


Cost  at 
home 

Cost 

abroad 

Duty  if  bought 
Abroad 

Cost 

abroad 

Rate 

Amt. 

&  duty 

Furniture . 

$1500. 

$1110. 

35% 

$388. 

$1498. 

Carpets  &  Rugs. . . . 

900. 

560. 

60% 

339. 

904. 

China  ware . 

450. 

280. 

60% 

168. 

448. 

Linen  goods . 

150. 

100. 

50% 

50. 

150. 

$3000. 

$2055. 

$945. 

$3000. 

I  paid  3000  dollars  for  my  goods,  goods  of  home 
manufacture.  The  cost  if  they  had  been  bought 
abroad  would  have  been  2055  dollars,  and  the 
duties  to  be  paid  on  bringing  them  home  945 
dollars,  the  two  sums  equalling  the  cost  when 
bought  of  our  own  factories.  In  these  purchases 
I  have  paid  out  3000  dollars  of  my  wheat  and 
cattle  money,  but  by  the  same  standard  of  value,  or 
cost  to  produce,  I  have  got  but  2055  dollars  worth 
of  furniture,  carpets,  &c.  in  my  house  in  return. 

In  the  purchase  of  my  household  goods  the 
trading  was  against  me  three  to  two.  In  the 
buying  of  farm  implements  and  machines  I 
believe  the  odds  are  much  worse.  The  high 
prices  of  these  things  are  the  result  of  tariff  duties. 
The  implements  themselves  may  not  be  pro¬ 
tected  by  extreme  rates  of  duty  but  the  materials 
of  which  they  are  made  are  highly  protected  and 
the  factory  which  manufactures  them  is  on  the 
same  basis  of  high  wages  and  high  profits  as  the 
factory  from  which  the  materials  come.  I  bought 
a  harrow  recently,  paying  nine  dollars  for  it. 
It  is  a  form  of  harrow  that  I  like  because  it  has  a 
wooden  frame  and  small  teeth  and  plenty  of 
them.  The  one  lately  purchased  is  the  third 
one  of  the  kind  on  the  farm.  It  is  simple,  re¬ 
quiring  very  little  machinery  or  skill  to  construct 
it.  I  have  made  an  estimate  of  its  cost,  in  mater¬ 
ials  and  labor,  which  is  as  follows: 

COST  OF  MATERIALS  AND  LABOR  IN  A  NINE 
DOLLAR  HARROW. 

8  pieces  of  oak  lumber,  16  feet,  at  $40.  per  thousand.  $.64 


40  steel  teeth,  weighing  41  pounds,  at  $1.80  per  100 . 74 

8  pieces  of  bar  and  1  piece  of  round  iron,  43  pounds 

at  $1.60  per  100 . 69 

5  feet  of  chain,  6  pounds  at  $3.60  per  100 . 22 

2  devices  at  4  cents  each . . 08 


28  §  in.  bolts  at  50  cents  a  hundred . 14 

40  rivets  with  washers,  2  pounds  at  5  cents . 10 

Paint,  very  cheap  red  paint . 14 

Cost  of  materials . $2.75 

Labor,  40  per  cent,  of  materials . 1.10 

Total  cost  to  maker . $3.85 


At  the  price  of  9  dollars  there  was  5  dollars  and 
15  cents  of  profit  in  the  harrow.  And  back  of  the 
profit  of  the  maker  of  the  harrow  there  was  the 
profit  of  the  lumber-men  who  cut,  sawed  and 
planed  the  wood,  the  profit  of  the  iron  manu¬ 
facturer  who  smelted  the  ore,  rolled  the  iron  into 
bars  and  cut  and  shaped  the  bars  into  harrow 
teeth,  and  the  profits  of  the  makers  of  bolts,  rivets 
and  chain.  If  we  assume  that  the  profits  of  these 
persons  were  upon  an  average  30  per  cent,  we 
shall  have  reduced  the  cost  of  the  harrow  in 
materials  and  labor  to  3  dollars  and  22  cents.  And 
I  do  not  doubt  that  if  one  had  the  knowledge 
to  judge  of  the  other  machines  used  on  the  farm 
the  showing  would  be  much  the  same  as  in  the 
case  of  the  harrow.  I  have  somewhere  read  that 
the  cost,  in  materials  and  labor,  of  the  wheat 
binder  is  but  thirty-seven  and  a  half  dollars.  I  do 
not  know  whether  this  is  true  but  am  inclined 
toward  the  belief  that  it  is.  A  binder  is  chiefly 
castings,  rods  and  bars.  The  iron  in  the  rods 
and  bars  would  not  cost  above  a  dollar  and  sixty 
cents  a  hundred  weight.  The  castings  would  cost 
less  I  think.  Once  the  patterns  have  been  made, 
and  these  are  not  very  costly,  the  expense  of  con¬ 
verting  a  ton  of  metal  into  castings  is  not  great. 
The  metal  itself  is  not  worth  over  sixteen  dollars 
a  ton.  A  ton  of  wrought  iron  is  made  into  nails 
for  four  and  a  half  dollars.  It  may  cost  more 
to  make  a  ton  of  metal  into  castings  such  as  are 
used  in  a  binder,  but  I  doubt  whether  it  does. 
The  weight  of  the  castings  and  the  wrought  iron  in 
the  binder  does  not  exceed  three  quarters  of  a 
ton,  I  should  say.  These  things  suggest  that  the 
binder  does  not  cost,  in  materials  and  labor,  more 
than  the  thirty-seven  and  a  half  dollars.  The 
farmer  pays  one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  for  it. 

The  farmer  has  been  blind  to  the  injustice  done 
him  in  his  exchanges  with  the  manufacturer.  He 
has  been  busy  with  his  farm  and  its  problems. 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


7 


To  plow  when  the  fields  are  neither  too  wet  nor  too 
dry,  to  plant  neither  too  early  nor  too  late,  to 
harvest  when  the  grain  is  in  the  right  condition, 
to  improve  the  productivity  of  his  soil,  to  adjust 
his  live  stock  to  his  pastures  and  his  winter’s 
feed,  to  master  the  diseases  which  attack  his 
animals- — these  and  many  other  questions  relating 
to  the  farm  have  occupied  his  thought.  He  has 
had  no  time  to  inform  himself  as  to  the  cost  of  the 
materials  and  the  labor  which  go  into  the  imple¬ 
ments  he  uses,  nor  has  he  stopped  to  compare  the 
profits  of  the  factory  owner  with  those  of  the 
farmer.  Nor  does  he  know  of  the  many  improve¬ 
ments  in  the  art  of  manufacturing  whereby  the 
various  parts  of  the  implements  he  uses  are  turned 
out  in  quantities  at  very  low  cost.  When  he 
buys  cattle  or  horses  or  land  he  is  wise  enough. 
He  is  a  judge  of  these  things  and  he  buys  worth 
the  money.  But  as  to  the  implements  and 
machines  on  the  farm,  he  needs  them  and  buys 
without  questioning.  When  looking  at  anew 
machine  he  sees  that  there  are  a  great  many 
wheels,  castings,  springs,  levers  and  ratchets, 
and  thinks  that  these  things  must  have  cost  a  great 
deal  of  money.  And  he  pays  the  price  and  says 
nothing. 

The  protection  upon  wool  and  manufactures  of 
wool  is  one  of  the  most  important  features  of  the 
tariff  laws.  It  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with-  the  cost 
of  clothing,  a  matter  of  much  interest  to  every 
family  in  the  land.  I  will  speak  first  of  raw  wool 
the  protection  of  which  is  taken  to  be  of  great 
benefit  to  the  farmer  because  he  owns  sheep. 

The  country’s  yearly  product  of  wool  is  in 
round  numbers  300  million  pounds.  This  is  not 
enough  to  meet  the  requirement  of  the  factories, 
and  foreign  grown  wools  are  brought  in  to  make 
up  the  deficiency.  The  importations  averaged 
190  million  pounds  a  year  for  the  five  years  ending 
with  1908.  About  53  per  cent,  of  this,  being  100 
million  pounds,  is  of  the  same  quality  as  the  wool 
produced  in  the  United  States,  and  the  average 
duty  collected  upon  the  100  million  pounds  is  11 
cents  a  pound.  The  remainder  of  the  importa¬ 
tions  is  of  inferior  wools  on  which  duties  of  3,  4 
and  7  cents  a  pound  respectively  are  charged. 


The  collecting  of  the  n  cents  a  pound  on  the  100 
million  pounds  yields  1 1  million  dollars  of  revenue 
to  the  Government.  But  the  existence  of  the  duty 
raises  the  price  of  the  home  produced  wool  11 
cents  a  pound,  as  it  was  intended  to  do.  Eleven 
cents  a  pound  upon  300  million  pounds  is  33 
million  dollars.  This  goes  to  the  wool  growers  of 
the  country.  The  two  sums  added  make  44  mil¬ 
lion  dollars  as  the  fund  or  tax  created  by  the 
tariff  for  revenue  and  protection.  Upon  the  side 
of  the  people  it  means  increased  cost  of  wool 
clothing,  44  millions  of  dollars  of  tax  upon  what  we 
wear  and  need  to  keep  us  warm.  As  there  are  18 
million  families  in  the  population  of  the  country, 
the  tax  is  equal  to  2  dollars  and  44  cents  for  each 
family.  This  sum  is  as  great  as  the  poll  tax 
collected  in  many  of  the  states.  One  reads  in  the 
newspapers  now  and  then  of  poor  men  who  go  to 
jail  because  they  cannot  pay  their  poll  taxes. 
But  in  the  case  of  the  wool  tax  the  poor  do  not  go 
to  jail,  they  simply  do  without  the  clothing.  And 
we  must  remember  that  but  one-fourth  of  the  2 
dollars  and  44  cents  is  revenue.  The  three- 
fourths,  to- wit,  one  dollar  and  83  cents,  is  a  tax 
laid  on  every  household  for  the  benefit  of  the  wool 
growers  of  the  country. 

I  have  said  that  the  Government  receives  11 
million  dollars  of  the  44  million  dollars  and  the 
wool  growers  33  million  dollars  as  the  result  of 
the  11  cents  a  pound  duty  on  wool  of  the  same 
quality  as  that  which  is  produced  in  this  country; 
and  who  are  the  wool  growers  and  where  are  the 
sheep? 

Forty  years  ago  Vermont,  New  York,  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  and  Ohio  had  a  good  many  sheep  but  the 
number  has  now  diminished  greatly.  Michigan, 
Wisconsin  and  Texas  have  some  sheep  but  Illinois 
Indiana,  Minnesota,  Iowa,  Missouri,  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  have  very  few.  South  Dakota  has  some 
sheep  but  North  Dakota  only  a  handful.  The 
Southern  States  have  no  sheep  to  speak  of.  The 
greater  part  of  the  sheep  are  west  of  the  Dakotas, 
Nebraska,  Kansas  and  Texas.  Sixty-four  per 
cent,  of  the  whole  54  millions  of  sheep  of  the 
country  are  in  the  eleven  States  nearest  the 
Pacific.  Wyommg  leads  with  7  millions  of  sheep, 


8 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


Montana  has  over  6  millions,  Idaho  is  next  with 
millions.  New  Mexico,  Oregon  and  Utah 
follow.  But  these  eleven  States  have  only  a  few 
people  and  the  title  of  much  of  the  land  is  still  in 
the  Govern  ment.  The  total  population  is  less  than 
6  millions  and  47  per  cent,  of  the  land  is  public 
property.  Yet  these  States  contain  34-^  millions 
of  sheep.  What  is  the  explanation?  It  is  simple 
enough.  The  sheep  belong  for  the  most  part  to 
companies  formed  by  eastern  people  who  pasture 
them  on  the  public  lands.  These  corporations 
pay  no  rent  to  speak  of,  if  any  at  all.  The  Gov¬ 
ernment  collects  a  little  rent  for  pasturage  on  its 
forest  reservations  but  none  on  its  unsold  lands 
in  general.  If  we  assume  that  27  millions  of  these 
sheep  (one-half  the  sheep  of  the  United  States) 
are  so  owned  and  are  fed  on  the  Government’s 
unsold  lands  we  shall  not  be  far  from  the  truth. 
The  worth  of  a  sheep’s  keep  is  figured  by  farmers 
variously,  some  putting  it  as  low  as  a  dollar  a 
year,  others  as  high  as  two  dollars  a  year.  If  we 
figure  the  27  millions  of  sheep  at  a  dollar  a  head 
we  have  27  million  dollars  as  the  worth  of  the 
pasture  the  owners  get  for  nothing.  Add  to  this 
the  11  cents  a  pound  protection  on  the  150  million 
pounds  of  wool  which  grows  on  the  sheep,  to-wit: 
16^  million  dollars,  and  we  have  43^  million  dol¬ 
lars  going  yearly  into  the  pockets  of  these  sheep 
owners  by  the  gift  of  the  Government. 

Conversing  with  an  acquaintance  recently, 
he  chanced  to  say  that  he  had  formerly  been 
interested  in  cattle  in  the  Far  West.  After  ex¬ 
plaining  that  the  cattle  ranching  had  ended  by 
reason  of  the  Government  having  ordered  all 
fences  removed  from  the  public  lands,  he  said  that 
the  sheep  people  now  controlled  the  public 
pasturages  through  having  purchased  the  watering 
places  without  which  the  pastures  cannot  be  used. 
I  asked  if  my  information  was  correct  that  the 
sheep  on  the  public  lands  belong  chiefly  to  cor¬ 
porations  of  Eastern  people.  He  said  it  was,  but 
that  some  persons  interested  in  the  sheep  industry 
live  in  the  Far  West.  One  of  these  he  named, 
saying  tha  t  the  man  owned  80  thousand  sheep  and 
held  also  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate. 
And  we  have  43^  million  dollars  going 


yearly  into  the  pockets  of  these  sheep  owners 
by  the  gift  of  the  Government. 

Turning  now  to  manufactures  of  wool,  I  will 
begin  by  setting  down  the  list  of  woolen  goods 
imported,  the  values  abroad  and  the  duties 
collected  for  the  year  ending  June  30th,  1908. 
It  is  an  average  year.  I  wish  the  reader  to  see  the 
list. 

IMPORTS  OF  WOOLEN  GOODS. 

Year  Ending  June  30th,  1908. 

Average 
Per  cent 


Values  Abroad 

Duties  Paid 

Duty 

Dress  Goods . 

_ $9,135,688 

$9,232,854 

101 

Cloths . 

_  4,599,274 

4,416,603 

96 

Carpets  and  Rugs . 

....  2,949,586 

1,788,090 

61 

Clothing,  ready  made. 

_  1,640,191 

1,335,851 

81 

Beltings  and  Braids... 

....  294,437 

253,321 

86 

Yarns . 

134,804 

89 

Flannels . 

_  71,594 

77,499 

108 

Plushes . 

_  60,755 

56,372 

93 

Felts . 

_  51,876 

49,239 

95 

Blankets . 

_  29,005 

21,723 

75 

Knit  Fabrics . 

_  8,908 

7,503 

84 

Rags  and  Shoddy . 

_  109,604 

50,875 

46 

$19,101,576 

$17,424,734 

91 

Cost  Foreign  made  Woolens..  .  $19,101,576 
Duties  paid  on  same .  17,424,734 


Total  Cost . $36,526,310 

Seventeen  million  dollars  of  duties  collected  on 
nineteen  million  dollars  worth  of  goods.  A  most 
excessive  tax  surely.  But  the  purpose  of  the  high 
rates  ofi  duty  is  not  any  urgent  need  the  Govern¬ 
ment  has  for  money,  but  to  give  the  trade  of  the 
country  in  woolen  goods  to  our  own  mills  and  at 
prices  which  equal  the  cost  of  like  goods  bought 
abroad  with  the  duties  added.  The  duties  on  the 
nineteen  million  dollars’  worth  of  goods  brought 
over  in  1908  has  nearly  doubled  the  cost  of  those 
goods,  but  the  broader  effect  of  the  high  rates  of 
duty  is  to  raise  the  price  of  all  woolen  goods  made 
at  home  correspondingly.  And  the  quantity  of 
woolen  goods  made  at  home  is  more  than  nine 
times  the  quantity  imported,  as  I  shall  proceed  to 
show. 

I  have  stated  that  our  annual  home  product  of 
wool  is  300  million  pounds  and  that  we  import  190 
million  pounds,  making  a  total  of  490  million 
pounds  used  each  year  by  our  factories.  Wool 
loses  in  weight  on  being  washed  a  id  scoured  60^ 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


9 


per  cent.  The  490  million  pounds  when  washed 
and  scoured  would  therefore  weigh  193!  million 
pounds,  which  figures  represent  approximately 
the  weight  of  the  cloth,  dress  goods,  carpets, 
blankets  &c.  made  by  our  mills  each  year.  Turn¬ 
ing  now  to  the  list  of  imports  of  woolen  goods  for 
the  said  year  ending  June  30th,  1908,  I  find  that 
of  the  goods  which  came  in,  5,299,176  dollars 
worth  were  rated  by  the  pound,  the  weight  being 
4,937,1:47  pounds.  The  value  is  therefore  equal 
to  one  dollar  and  seven  and  one-third  cents  a 
pound.  If  we  take  the  one  dollar  and  seven  and  a 
third  cents  a  pound  as  the  index  of  the  value  per 
pound  of  the  whole,  the  weight  of  the  wool  in  the 
19  million  dollars  worth  of  imports  is  17!  million 
pounds.  If  this  be  added  to  the  193  £  million 
pounds  manufactured  at  home  we  have  a  total 
of  2ii\  million  pounds  of  wool  cloth,  carpets, 
blankets  &c.  used  in  the  country  in  one  year. 
The  proportions  between  the  imported  and  the 
home  made  goods  stated  in  percentages  are; 
imported  goods,  8^  per  cent.,  home  manufactured 
goods,  91 J  per  cent. 

And  now  for  the  prices  charged  the  people  for 
the  193^  million  pounds  of  wool  cloth,  carpets 
&c.  made  at  home  each  year.  I  have  already 
stated  that  the  cost  abroad  of  the  imports,  which 
I  estimate  as  1)  f  million  pounds,  is  1  dollar  and  7  J 
cents  per  pound.  If  we  divide  the  17!  million 
pounds  into  the  total  duties  collected  on  woolens 
for  the  year  ending  June  30th,  1908,  we  shall  find 
that  the  duties  were  equal  to  98  cents  for  each 
pound  of  the  17!  million  pounds.  Adding  the  98 
cents  to  the  1  dollar  and  7J  cents,  we  have  2 
dollars  and  5  J  cents  as  the  total  cost  per  pound  of 
the  woolen  goods  imported.  Applying  the  2 
dollars  and  5J  cents  per  pound  to  the  193J  mil¬ 
lion  pounds,  we  have  397^  million  dollars  as  the 
price  paid  by  our  people  for  the  wool  cloth,  dress 
goods,  carpets  &c.  made  in  our  own  factories  each 
year.  And  of  this  47 \  per  cent.,  nearly  one-half, 
is  protection.  The  33  million  dollars  of  tax  laid 
on  the  people  for  the  benefit  of  the  wool  grower  has 
become  189  6-10  million  dollars  of  tax  when  the 
cloth  comes  from  the  hands  of  the  wool  manu¬ 
facturer.  The  yearly  tax  of  one  dollar  and  eighty- 


three  cents  laid  on  each  family  of  the  population 
for  the  benefit  of  the  wool  grower  has  become  ten 
dollars  and  fifty  cents  at  the  hands  of  the  wool 
manufacturer.  Of*  every  twenty-five  dollars 
spent  for  cloth,  dress  goods  &c.,  eleven  dollars 
and  ninety-three  cents  is  protection  or  added  cost 
because  of  the  tariff  on  wool  and  woolen  goods. 

Woolen  factories  were  first  established  in  the 
country  in  1812.  With  one  hundred  'years  of 
experience  and  protection  they  have  not  learned 
the  art  of  making  good  cloths.  Why  should  they 
when  the  country  will  take  inferior  cloths  and  pay 
high  prices  for  them?  I  asked  a  tailor  of  much 
knowledge  on  the  subject  why  it  is  that  the 
American  cloths  are  not  so  good  as  the  English? 
His  reply  was  “Our  mills  are  in  too  much  of  a 
hurry,  they  do  not  get  all  the  grease  out  of  the 
wool,  nor  do  they  season  the  wTool  before  making' 
it  into  cloth,  the  colors  are  not  good.”  Another 
tailor  corroborated  the  first  but  said  that  in  the 
matter  of  colors  there  are  some  brown  cloths  now 
made  in  the  country  which  stand  pretty  well. 
It  is  time  our  factories  were  getting  something 
right.  I  wear  the  English  clothes,  having  early 
learned  their  excellence.  Good  tailors  keep  little 
else  on  their  counters.  The  English  cloths  are 
soft,  light  in  weight  and  warm.  They  have  a  cast 
or  finish  about  them  which  very  few  if  any  of  the 
native  cloths  have.  When  old  and  worn  they 
still  have  character.  Some  of  my  suits  go  to  the 
foreman  on  the  farm  when  I  am  done  with  them. 
He  wears  them  when  he  goes  to  the  city  in  pre¬ 
ference  to  his  newer  clothes  of  American  cloth. 
I  doubt  whether  many  of  the  owners  of  our  cloth 
factories  wear  their  own  goods. 

Turning  back  to  the  list  of  imports  of  woolen 
goods  I  have  given,  it  will  be  noticed  that  dress 
goods  is  the  largest  item  on  the  list,  is  in  fact,  one- 
half  of  the  whole  volume  of  woolen  imports.  The 
fact  shows  that  the  women  know  that  the  nicest 
dress  goods  are  made  across  the  water.  And  in 
buying  these  goods  they  have  gotten  better  value 
notwithstanding  the  duties  than  if  they  had 
bought  native  goods.  But  I  have  one  regret  in 
this  matter  and  I  wish  to  mark  it  with  emphasis. 
It  is  that  the  imported  dress  goods  do  not  reach 


10 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


the  country  women  but  stop  with  the  well-to-do 
and  wealthy  women  in  the  cities.  The  country 
women  must  do  with  the  less  attractive  and  less 
valuable  dress  goods  made  in  our  home  factories. 
And  this  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  much  of  the 
corn  and  wheat  which  the  country  woman’s 
husband  raises  goes  to  feed  the  people  who  work 
in  the  factories  where  the  nice  goods  are  made. 

The  other  day  I  said  to  my  foreman,  “William, 
what  sort  of  blankets  have  the  families  which  live 
on  the  farm  got,  do  you  know?”  After  a  little 
study  he  said  “There  may  be  two  or  three  blankets 
among  them”  (there  are  four  families)  “which  the 
women  got  from  their  mothers  on  leaving  home, 
old-fashioned,  pure  wool  blankets,  but  mostly  the 
folks  have  these  cotton  things  you  buy  at  the  store 
for  a  dollar  and  a  half.”  William’s  remark  about 
the  blankets  which  came  from  the  mothers  called 
to  mind  the  day  of  the  little  woolen  mill  on  a 
neighborhood  stream  to  which  the  country 
people  carried  fleeces  of  wool  and  had  them  made 
into  blankets  and  flannels.  Tariff  protection  was 
not  thought  of,  and  there  were  no  high  dividends 
to  the  owner  of  the  mill,  but  the  people  had 
blankets  and  flannels  in  plenty,  the  poor  as  well  as 
the  rich.  And  it  has  come  to  pass  that  the 
blankets  my  work  people  on  the  farm  have  are  the 
-  few  which  came  as  marriage  gifts  from  the  houses 
so  well  supplied  by  the  little  mill.  The  high  prices 
have  taken  the  blankets  from  the  homes  of  the 
poor;  only  the  rich  can  afford  to  buy  them. 

The  tariff  and  the  high  prices  it  causes  the 
people  to  pay  comes  home  to  the  woman  on  the 
farm  in  a  most  serious  way.  It  is  hard  for  her  to 
get  money.  And  what  study  she  must  bestow 
upon  her  purchases  to  bring  them  within  her 
means.  If  it  is  furniture,  the  piece  she  most 
wants  must  be  left  out  because  it  costs  so  much. 
If  it  is  a  winter  cloak,  five  dollars  more  would 
buy  one  which  fully  satisfies  her  but  the  five 
dollars  cannot  be  spared  for  the  better  cloak. 
And  the  children;  how  difficult  it  is  to  buy  with  the 
money  she  has  the  necessary  things  and  have  them 
at  all  nice.  This  woman  and  her  interests  have 
had  no  place  in  the  consideration  of  the  wise  men 
who  sit  in  Congress.  These  personages  are  busy 


with  the  manufacturer  and  his  interests.  They 
have  regarded  it  their  duty  to  make  the  factory 
wheels  go  round,  and  believed,  or  thought  they 
believed,  that  if  the  wheels  do  go  round  there  will 
somehow  be  blessings  for  everybody.  They 
have  not  stopped  to  consider  at  whose  cost  manu¬ 
factures  have  prospered  so,  nor  to  ask  whether 
favors  to  the  owner  of  the  mill  does  not  mean 
injustice  and  wrong  done  to  the  women  on  the 
farm. 

Not  only  do  the  things  the  farmer  gets  from  the 
factory  come  to  him  charged  with  the  high  profit 
of  the  manufacturer,  but  they  come  loaded  also 
with  the  high  rate  of  wages  paid  in  the  factory. 
The  manufacturing  community  is  upon  a  basis  of 
high  prices  by  association.  High  profits,  high 
wages,  high  values  of  property  and  high  cost  of 
living  go  together.  Recently  when  in  one  of  the 
large  manufacturing  cities  I  had  occasion  to  buy 
a  few  turnips  in  a  reputable  store.  On  looking  at 
my  change,  I  saw  that  I  had  been  charged  thirty 
cents  for  a  half  peck.  As  I  went  up  the  street 
carrying  my  package  I  began  to  think:  thirty 
cents  for  a  half  peck,  sixty  cents  for  a  peck,  two 
dollars  and  forty  cents  for  a  bushel;  we  farmers 
would  do  well  raising  the  turnips  and  delivering 
them  in  the  car  at  the  railroad  at  the  forty  cents, 
how  does  it  come  that  turnips  cost  two  dollars 
and  forty  cents  a  bushel  in  the  city?  Then  I  re¬ 
flect  that  this  is  a  manufacturing  city,  that  in  it  all 
business  and  service  take  character  from  the  mill, 
its  high  profits  and  high  wages.  The  prices  of 
land,  of  building  materials,  of  labor,  of  clerk  hire, 
of  professional  service,  of  rent,  are  all  on  a  high 
profit  basis.  The  merchant,  the  contractor,  the 
artisan  and  the  investor  think  themselves  entitled 
to  as  much  profit  as  the  factory  owner.  And  why 
are  they  not?  I  begin  to  see  why  the  price  of 
turnips  is  high.  I  reflect  further  and  note  that  in 
this  city  eight  hours  is  a  day’s  labor,  while  with  us 
on  the  farm  the  day’s  work  is  ten  hours  long  in 
winter  and  thirteen  hours  long  in  summer.  I  re¬ 
call  too  the  fortunes  made  by  the  men  who  have 
had  the  city’s  contracts,  and  this  suggests  waste  in 
its  public  improvements.  I  note  too  that  the  city’s 
trolley  system  is  capitalized  at  more  than  six  times 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


11 


the  cost  of  the  lines  and  equipment.  Nor  do  I 
forget  that  the  city’s  chief  industries  which  have 
given  it  fame  have  been  turned  over  to  the  so- 
called  trust  corporations  in  exchange  for  issues  of 
stocks  and  bonds  so  vast  as  to  astonish  the  persons 
familiar  with  the  properties.  I  think  the  price  of 
turnips  is  accounted  for.  If  the  things  I  have 
recited  make  for  the  prosperity  of  the  city  and  the 
public  welfare,  then  I  take  it  that  the  sale  of 
turnips  at  the  two  dollars  and  forty  cents  a  bushel 
does  also.  Turnips  are  principally  water.  The 
city’s  manufacturing  properties  and  projects  have, 
I  fear,  taken  on  much  of  the  same  character. 
And  last  of  all  I  reflect  that  it  is  the  workmen  in 
the  factories  who  buy  my  forty  cent  turnips,  pay¬ 
ing  two  dollars  and  forty  cents  for  them,  and  that 
the  price  they  pay  for  food,  clothing  and  rent  comes 
home  to  me  in  the  things  they  w’ork  upon  in  the 
factory,  and  which  I  buy  of  the  manufacturer. 
These  workmen  must  receive  wages  equal  to  the 
cost  of  their  living,  and  such  wages  is  part  of  the 
cost  of  every  garment,  implement  or  other 
thing  which  the  farmer  receives  from  the  factory. 

A  custom  prevailed  among  farmers  years  ago 
of  giving  a  bushel  of  wheat  in  exchange  for  a  day’s 
work  in  the  fields.  The  farm  hand  does  not  now 
carry  away  the  bushel  of  wheat  at  the  end  of  the 
day,  but  the  dollar  a  day  wages  he  receives  is  a 
close  equivalent.4  The  sum  paid  the  city  or 
factory  workman,  taking  the  skilled  and  the  un¬ 
skilled  employments  into  view,  is  not  far  from  two 
dollars  a  day.  The  labor  required  on  the  farm  is 
by  no  means  unskilled  labor.  The  man  who 
works  there  must  be  able  to  manage  horses  and 
must  know  how  to  operate  farm  machines.  I 
think  it  is  a  just  estimate  to  say  that  the  day’s 
labor  on  the  farm  is  as  valuable  to  the  country  as 
the  day’s  labor  in  the  factory.  I  think  too  that  the 
man  working  on  the  farm  at  the  dollar  a  day  has 
as  good  a  living  and  as  good  an  opportunity  to 
save  as  the  man  in  the  factory  at  the  two  dollars  a 
day.  He  has,  to  say  the  least,  the  essentials  of 
comfort,  more  encouragement  to  efficiency  and 
thrift  and  less  temptation  to  waste.  There  are  a 
number  of  men  living  about  me  who  twenty  years 
ago  were  farm  hands,  but  now  own  farms. 


And  it  should  not  cost  any  more  to  carry  the  food 
from  the  farm  to  the  workman  in  the  city  or 
factory  town  than  to  carry  thfc  clothing  and 
groceries  from  the  city  to  the  laborer  on  the  farm. 
The  bushel  of  wheat  should  be  the  measure  of 
the  day’s  work  in  the  factory  and  the  city 
as  it  is  the  measure  of  the  day’s  work 
upon  the  farm.  The  farmer’s  quarrel  is  not  with 
the  city  workman  and  the  living  he  gets.  It  is 
with  the  condition  or  state  of  things  which  makes 
the  day’s  labor  in  the  city  cost  a  double  price, 
the  condition  which  makes  it  necessary  to  yield  up 
two  bushels  of  wheat  in  order  to  have  a  day’s 
work  done  there. 

It  has  become  a  common  practice  to  complain 
of  the  so-called  middleman,  the  man  who  deals 
in  food  products  after  they  leave  the  farm  or 
furnishes  them  to  the  people  in  the  towns  and 
cities.  The  profit  he  makes  adds  greatly  to  the 
cost  of  the  food  when  it  reaches  the  consumer. 
I  remember  reading  in  an  old  city  code  a  statute 
forbidding  anyone  to  intercept  a  farmer  on 
his  way  to  the  city  market  with  his  produce. 
Such  an  act  was  known  as  forestalling  and  the 
guilty  person  was  to  be  severely  punished.  The 
thing  intended  was  that  no  one  should  come 
between  the  farmer  who  produced  the  food  and 

4  The  wages  and  allowances  given  in  my  own 
neighborhood  to  farm  hands  who  have  families  and 
who  engage  by  the  year  are  as  follows : 


Wages,  $15.  per  month . $180. 

Allowances, 

House  and  garden,  yearly  value  ....  $30 

Fuel,  yearly  value .  18. 

Flour,  3  barrels,  worth .  18. 

Corn,  25  bushels  "  .  12. 

Meat,  300  pounds  ”  .  24 . 

Milk  of  a  cow,  yearly  value .  18.  120. 


$300. 

If  the  man  and  his  wife  are  thrifty,  they  will 
raise  a  couple  of  hogs,  keep  chickens  and  have  a  good 
garden.  They  may  by  these  means  add  from  50 
dollars  to  100  dollars  to  the  yearly  living  given  by 
the  wages  and  allowances.  The  allowances  count 
for  more  than  the  money  wages  which  goes,  most 
of  it.  to  the  country  store  for  clothing,  shoes  and 
grocerios,  things  produced  on  tariff  wages  and  sold 
at  tariff  profits. 


12 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


the  city  merchant  and  workman  who  consumed 
it.  In  our  day  it  is  not  possible  for  the  farmer 
to  carry  his  products  to  the  consumer  and  the 
milddleman  has  become  a  necessity.  But  he 
has  run  riot.  He  flourishes  chiefly  in  the  manu¬ 
facturing  towns  and  cities.  The  atmosphere  of 
the  protected  industries  is  particularly  favorable 
to  him.  There  he  can  charge  excessively  for 
the  things  he  sells.  The  manufacturer  allots 
him  a  liberal  share  of  his  tariff  pi  ofits ;  the  work¬ 
man  is  compelled  to  divide  with  him  his  tariff 
wages.  He  is  part  of  a  system.  Ephraim  is 
joined  to  the  idols  of  protection.  When  the 
manufacturer  learns  to  do  with  less  profit  the 
middleman  also  will  learn  to  do  so. 

The  inflated  and  false  character  given  to  our 
affairs  by  the  protective  system  has  encouraged 
greatly  the  manufacture  of  inferior  wares.  If  the 
manufacturer  may  lawfully  take  an  excess  price 
he  may  by  the  same  license  furnish  an  article 
which  is  not  good  although  purporting  to  be  so. 
There  is  lacking  in  our  manufactures  today  the 
quality  of  goodness.  No  one  intends  to  buy  an 
article  which  is  not  good,  but  every  one  almost 
invariably  does.  The  really  good  thing  is  rarely 
made  or  sold.  The  farmer  above  all  other  per¬ 
sons  has  been  made  to  suffer  through  his  pur¬ 
chases  of  inferior  and  deceptive  things.  It  is 
a  matter  of  frequent  remark  among  farmers 
that  galvanized  roofing  and  fencing  wire  are  no 
longer  of  good  quality.  The  old  wire  fences  are 
the  best  ones  today.  The  zinc  is  off  much  of  the 
wire  of  my  fences  put  up  six  years  ago.  In  one 
lot  of  fencing  three  of  the  nine  horizontal  wires 
are  still  good.  They  seem  to  have  a  proper 
coating  of  zinc.  I  suppose  I  should  be  grateful 
for  small  favors.  I  have  not  used  the  roofing. 
When  the  art  of  galvanizing  iron  surfaces  first 
came  in  it  was  a  good  art;  it  must  still  be  so  if 
honestly  practiced.  I  think  it  is  a  just  criticism 
to  say  that  of  the  implements  and  machines  the 
farmer  uses  there  are  few  if  any  which  are  the 
implements  and  machines  they  ought  to  be  and 
are  sold  as  being.  There  is  a  flimsiness  about 
many  of  them  which  not  only  negatives  their 
usefulness,  but  is  offensive  to  the  eye.  From  the 


wheelbarrow  to  the  manure  spreader,  the  idea 
seems  to  be  to  furnish  an  implement  which  is 
intended  to  shake  to  pieces  in  three  weeks.  I 
have  a  goodly  number  of  machines  on  the  farm 
and  among  them  there  is  but  one  which  has  been 
wholly  satisfactory.  It  is  a  mill  for  grinding 
shelled  corn  into  meal.  That  this  mill  is  a  thor¬ 
oughly  good  machine  I  attribute  to  the  fact  that 
it  was  built  for  a  miller  and  not  for  a  farmer. 
I  frequently  repair  the  machines  on  the  farm. 
Every  job  I  do  reveals  some  new  fault,  shoulders 
which  do  not  meet,  bolt  holes  which  do  not 
match,  pinions  which  are  set  crooked  or  cogs 
which  mesh  at  the  corners  only.  In  many  of 
the  implements  the  castings  are  heavy  but  of 
low  grade  metal,  and  the  steel  rods  and  bars 
softer  and  having  less  quality  than  the  iron  of 
former  days.  The  farmer  has  no  engineer  to 
design  his  machines  and  to  specify  the  kind  of 
materials  which  shall  go  into  them  as  does  the 
railroad  when  it  places  an  order  for  engines, 
cars  or  rails.  Nor  can  he  place  an  inspector  at 
the  factory  to  see  that  the  materials  used  in  his 
implements  are  good  and  the  work  upon  them 
skilfully  done,  as  does  the  navy  when  building  its 
ships.  The  farmer  is  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the 
big  factory.  What  it  chooses  to  give  him  he  must 
take.  Good  tools  mean  something  to  the  farmer 
as  well  as  to  the  mechanic,  but  the  farmer  rarely 
has  the  opportunity  to  buy  tools  which  are  of 
good  quality.  I  often  wonder  if  the  mechanic 
in  the  city  shop  has  good  tools,  and  if  so,  where 
he  gets  them.  I  own  a  few  good  tools,  but  I 
bought  them  thirty  years  ago.  I  have  made 
many  purchases  since  I  came  to  the  farm,  but 
with  the  exception  of  a  brace  for  boring  holes 
and  a  rat-tail  file  I  have  not  added  a  first  class 
tool  to  my  collection.  Many  of  the  tools  were 
next  to  worthless.  One  would  think  that  a 
carpenter’s  square  would  be  a  properly  made 
instrument.  I  have  bought  three,  one  after  the 
other,  and  not  one  of  them  is  square.  My  latest 
purchases,  made  in  the  city,  were  a  set  of  chisels, 
a  box  of  S  wrenches  and  a  half  dozen  large  files. 
A  single  using  served  to  put  a  wire  edge  on  four 
of  the  chisels,  two  of  the  wrenches  are  broken 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


13 


and  the  files  are  no  better  than  the  ones  I  have 
been  buying  at  the  village  store.  This  thing  of 
poorly  built  machines  and  implements  and  of 
bad  materials  and  tools  furnished  the  farmer 
has  become  an  abomination.  I  think  the  cure 
is  the  same  as  for  the  high  prices,  i.  e.  take  oft 
the  tariff  duties.  Once  open  the  way  for  the 
goods  of  other  countries  to  come  in  and  our 
factories  will  give  the  farmer  good  materials, 
machines  and  tools  and  at  just  prices.  Competi¬ 
tion  is  the  great  arbiter  not  only  of  prices  but  of 
quality  in  the  things  sold.  There  is  nothing  like 
it. 

And  what  I  have  said  of  the  injustice  done  the 
farmer  by  the  protection  given  the  manufacturer 
is,  it  seems  to  me,  doubly  important  in  view  of  the 
state  of  agriculture  throughout  the  country. 
The  farmer  has  flourished  in  the  past  because  of 
the  cheapness  of  land  and  the  virgin  fertility  of  the 
soil.5  As  the  population  grew  and  as  the  farm 
lands  of  the  East  lost  in  productiveness,  farmers 
moved  Westward  to  new  and  more  fertile  lands, 
first  to  Ohio  and  Kentucky,  then  to  Indiana, 
Illinois  and  Michigan,  and  later  to  Wisconsin, 
Iowa  and  Missouri,  and  last  to  Nebraska,  Kansas 
and  Indian  Territory.  The  new  country  proved 
a  veritable  garden.  There  is  no  computing  what 
the  nation  owes  to  this  area  of  rich  land  in  wealth, 
in  national  power,  in  advanced  civilization.  But 
the  garden  has  been  occupied,  every  nook  and 
corner  being  brought  under  cultivation.  And  now 
much  of  it  is  beginning  to  lose  its  productiveness, 
and  its  people  are  restless.  Many  would  move 
Westward  if  there  were  any  more  good  land  to 
move  to.  Much  of  the  travel  in  the  Far  West  is 
by  farmers  from  the  Middle  West  in  search  of 
new  and  fertile  land.  They  have  quickly  taken 

ft  Nature’s  gifts  are  like  fruits  ripened  and  ready  for  use  . 
Time  has  been  the  great  factor  in  the  preparation;  the  use 
or  consumption  is  but  the  matter  of  a  day.  The  minerals 
most  useful  in  the  arts,  coal,  iron,  copper  &c.  have  been 
millions  of  years  in  coming  to  their  present  state.  Petro¬ 
leum  oil  and  natural  gas  are  but  the  remnants  of  the  gases 
of  a  former  geological  age.  The  soil  with  its  stores  of  plant 
food  has  been  long  in  the  making.  Some  hundreds,  often 
some  thousands,  of  years  were  involved.  It  too  is  a  store 
house  ready,  and  is  quickly  emptied.  The  filling  again 
artificially  may  be  possible,  but  not  easy.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  when  land  is  exhausted  its  owners  leave  it  and  seek 
new  fields. 


possession  of  Oklahoma.  And  in  the  past  six  or 
seven  years  large  numbers  have  bought  lands 
in  the  Western  provinces  of  Canada,  that  being 
the  only  country  where  there  is  any  longer 
productive  land  offering  at  low  prices.  Irrigation, 
it  is  true,  is  reclaiming. a  few  areas  bordering  the 
Rockies  in  our  own  country.  But  these  are  mere 
dots  on  the  map.  They  are  entirely  inadequate 
to  meet  the  demand  for  new  lands,  and  can  con¬ 
tribute  but  the  merest  fraction  of  the  country’s 
increasing  food  requirment.  And  there  is  also 
the  dry  farming,  the  growing  of  crops  on  the  plains 
of  Montana  and  Colorado  where  there  is  but 
little  rain  and  where  crops  cannot  be  grown  in  the 
ordinary  way.  A  crop  is  taken  every  second  year 
only,  the  intervening  year  being  employed  in 
deep  plowing  and  mulching  in  order  to  store  the 
water  of  the  scant  rain  fall.  I  doubt  whether  the 
25  to  35  bushels  of  wheat  per  acre  harvested  pays 
for  the  two  years  farming.  And  then  too  the 
lands  will  quickly  lose  in  productiveness,  more 
quickly  I  should  think,  than  did  the  Minnesota 
wheat  lands  farmed  under  ordinary  methods. 

We  have  come,  it  seems  to  me,  to  the  foot  of  the 
hill  of  difficulty  in  our  agriculture  and  must  begin 
the  ascent  however  hard  it  may  be.  The  coun¬ 
try’s  food  supply  must  come  from  the  lands  now 
under  cultivation  and  the  lands  which  were 
formerly  tilled  but  are  now  waste.  The  man  on 
land  which  was  originally  rich  and  productive, 
but  now  worn  and  but  half  productive,  has  a 
difficult  task  to  bring  his  land  back  to  what  it 
once  was.  And  the  man  on  land  which  never 
did  produce  well,  if  he  is  to  redeem  its  barrenness, 
has  a  still  harder  problem.  The  only  conditions 
under  which  these  things  can  be  done  are  that  the 
prices  the  farmer  receives  for  his  products  must 
go  up  or  the  prices  of  what  he  buys  must  come 
down. 

We  hear  much  of  the  so-called  new  agriculture. 
Science  we  are  told  has  come  to  the  aid  of  the 
farmer.  We  have  agricultural  colleges,  experi¬ 
ment  stations,  the  laboratories  at  Washington 
devoted  to  the  study  of  soils  and  plants.  The 
magazines  bring  to  interested  readers  golden  ac¬ 
counts  of  new  discoveries  in  the  management  of  the 


14 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


soil.  Railroad  presidents  talk  of  the  revolution  in 
farming,  and  railroad  directors  authorize  the 
purchase  of  lands  to  be  used  to  illustrate  the  new 
ideas.  The  notion  is  certainly  abroad  that 
important  discoveries  and  improvements  have  been 
made  in  obtaining  returns  from  the  tilling  of  the 
soil.  But  it  is  without  much  foundation  in  fact 
I  am  sorry  to  say.  No  royal  road  has  been  found, 
no  way  discovered  of  obtaining  a  paying  crop 
from  barren  land,  or  of  maintaining  without 
much  cost  the  productiveness  of  good  land.  When 
the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth  Rock,  three 
hundred  years  ago,  they  were  told  by  the  Indians 
that  corn  would  grow  in  the  barren  sands  if  a 
fish  was  put  in  each  hill.6  But  it  was  soon  learned 
that  the  fish  could  with  more  profit  be  salted 
and  sold  across  the  sea.  The  question  of  render¬ 
ing  fertile  lands  which  are  by  nature  void  of  plant 
food  is  the  same  today  that  it  was  300  years  ago. 
The  farmer  who  is  on  such  land  cannot  raise  full 
crops  unless  he  fertilizes  heavily.  If  he  is  on  the 
point  of  turning,  his  land  out  to  commons  and 
going  to  the  city  it  is  because  he  cannot  afford  to 
buy  the  plant  food  and  sell  his  products  at  the 
prices  current  for  them.  And  the  man  who  has 
inherited  a  good  farm,  while  he  may  have  gradu¬ 
ated  from  an  agricultural  college,  and  may  talk 
of  nitrogen,  phosphoric  acid  and  potash,  of  bac¬ 
teria,  nitrification  and  conservation  of  soil  moisture, 
yet  he  is  no  more  capable  in  the  matter  of  pro¬ 
ducing  good  crops  and  maintaining  the  fertility 
of  his  land  than  his  grandfather  was.  The  latter 
knew  that  if  he  had  manure  enough  he  could 
enrich  the  farm,  knew  that  if  he  succeeded  in 
obtaining  a  good  stand  of  clover,  a  full  crop  of 
corn  or  of  wheat  was  pretty  certain  to  follow. 
He  knew  also  the  value  of  lime.  The  manure 
question  and  the  clover  question  are  the  essential 
questions  of  farming  today,  just  as  they  were  two 
generations  ago.  There  is  the  same  shortness  of 


6  Because  the  soil  was  so  barren  the  people  of  New  Eng¬ 
land  early  took  to  building  ships  and  sailing  them  on  the 
sea.  The  business  flourished  until  our  high  tariff  with  tne 
consequent  high  cost  of  materials  and  labor  broke  it  down. 
The  building  of  ships  to  be  used  on  the  high  seas  goes 
naturally  to  the  countries  and  places  where  materials  and 
lat  or  are  cheapest. 


manure,  the  same  uncertainty  in  the  growth  of 
the  clover.  Science  discloses  the  seriousness  of 
the  problems  with  which  the  farmer  has  to  deal, 
affords  him  some  important  information,  but 
leaves  him  still  dependent  upon  his  own  resources 
and  judgment. 

The  man  on  land  once  good  but  now  low  in 
fertility  is  not  usually  in  condition  to  grow  a  crop 
purely  to  enrich  the  soil,  nor  to  feed  cattle  in 
order  to  secure  the  manure.  His  first  care  is  a 
living  for  his  family  with  enough  giain  and  hay 
left  from  sale  to  carry  his  live  stock  through  the 
winter.  There  is  nothing  over  with  which  to 
improve  the  land.  The  seed  for  a  fertilizing  crop 
is  expensive,  the  labor  considerable  and  the 
growth  uncertain.  If  cattle  are  to  be  fed  for  the 
manure  they  must  first  be  purchased  which 
requires  money,  and  unless  the  farmer  is  wel 
prepared  for  feeding  and  for  saving  the  manure 
the  project  will  result  in  a  loss.  The  building 
up  of  a  depleted  soil  is  by  no  means  easy  for  the 
man  who  has  capital;  it  is  next  to  impossible  for 
the  man  whose  only  resource  is  the  yearly  product 
of  his  failing  land.  The  majority  of  farmers  are 
bound  hand  and  foot  by  their  urgent  needs,  their 
poverty  I  might  call  it,  and  are  doing  very  little, 
and  can  do  but  very  little,  toward  maintaining 
or  restoring  the  fertility  of  the  soil. 

And  since  the  farmer  has  a  new  burden  to 
carry  in  the  matter  of  his  failing  soil,  the  load  put 
upon  him  by  the  unjust  prices  he  is  compelled  to 
pay  the  manufacturer  should  be  taken  off.  He  has 
borne  the  old  burden  through  ignorance  and  was 
in  fact  able  to  do  so  because  of  the  cheapness  of 
land  and  the  virgin  fertility  of  the  soil.  But  now 
that  the  burden  of  the  costly  care  of  the  soil  is 
upon  him  he  cannot  carry  the  old  burden.  He 
can  no  longer  give  three  and  take  two  in  return. 
He  and  the  owner  of  the  factory  must  begin  to  deal 
on  even  terms. 

And  the  question  whether  farmers  shall  be 
supplied  with  implements  and  machinery  at 
just  prices  or  at  very  exorbitant  prices  is  one  in 
which  the  whole  country  is  interested.  It  affects 
the  supply  of  wheat,  corn  and  cattle  and  the  price 
of  bread.  The  implements  and  machines  are 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER . 


15 


necessary  to  the  farmer  if  he  is  to  raise  grain  in  any 
quantity.  With  many  a  farmer,  to  charge  him 
for  one  cultivator  a  price  which  should  have  paid 
for  two,  is  to  curtail  his  crop  of  corn  by  one 
half.  The  costliness  of  an  outfit  for  farming  sends 
a  great  many  young  men  from  the  farm  to  the 
mines  or  the  city  to  seek  employment.  And  with  the 
young  man  who  does  make  a  start  on  the  farm, 
but  with  small  capital,  it  is  a  matter  of  years  before 
he  is  properly  equipped  with  implements.  In  the 
meantime  he  cannot  produce  muclngrain.  A  re¬ 
duction  of  the  price  of  implements,  clothing  and 
whatever  else  the  farmer  uses  to  a  just  basis  will 
increase  the  supply  of  wheat,  corn  and  cattle,  and 
keep  the  price  of  bread  down. 

In  order  to  mark  more  effectually  the  result 
of  the  farmer’s  uneven  trading  and  to  give  an 
idea  of  his  losses  in  figures  I  have  made  an 
estimate  of  his  sales  in  the  past  forty  years  and 
have  applied  to  these  sales  the  same  rule  as  in 
the  purchase  of  my  household  goods,  viz.:  that 
for  every  three  dollars  of  value  the  farmer-  gives 
he  receives  two  dollars  of  value  in  return.  The 
Secretary  of  Agriculture  has  undertaken  to  give 
the  value  of  the  products  of  the  farms  each  year, 
beginning  with  1900.  These  estimates  are  the 
only  prepared  figures  relating  to  the  products 
of  the  farms  of  which  I  have  any  knowledge. 
The  values  for  each  year  appear  under  the  head¬ 
ing  “Wealth  Production  on  Farms”  in  the 
Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States  for  1909. 
The  total  value  for  the  ten  years,  1900  to  1909, 
is  65,178,000,000  dollars.  As  only  the  total 
figures  for  each  year  are  given  out  I  have  made 
inquiry  at  the  Department  of  Agriculture  whether 
the  value  of  the  grain,  hay,  etc.,  fed  on  the  farms 
to  live  stock  is  included  in  the  estimates.  I  was 
told  that  it  is.  This  being  the  case  the  estimates 
do  not  represent  truly  the  product  or  income  of 
the  farms.  To  count  the  value  of  the  animals 
fattened  and  also  the  value  of  the  corn,  hay,  etc., 
used  to  fatten  them  is  to  count  the  same  value 
twice.  Turning  to  the  Census  reports  for  1900 
I  find  that  the  value  given  to  the  products  of  the 
farms  does  not  include  the  value  of  the  grain,  etc., 
fed  on  the  farms  to  live  stock.  The  figures  are 


given,  however,  for  the  value  fed  and  it  is  one- 
third  of  the  crop  value  and  equal  to  one-fifth  of 
the  total  crop  and  animal  value.  I  think  this  is  the 
correct  way  of  stating  the  matter.  I  shall  therefore 
deduct  one-fifth  from  the  65,187,000,000  dol¬ 
lars,  reducing  it  10  52,150,000,000  dollars,  believ¬ 
ing  this  sum  to  represent  more  correctly 
the  product  or  income  of  the  farms  for  the  years 
1900  to  1909.  There  being  no  published  figures 
for  the  value  of  farm  products  back  of  1900  1 
must  derive  an  estimate  for  the  thirty  years,  1870 
to  1899,  from  the  value  of  the  farm  products 
exported  during  those  years,  the  record  of  which 
has  been  kept.  By  taking  the  figures  for  every 
fifth  year  which  are  before  me  and  supplying  pro¬ 
portionate  figures  for  the  intervening  years,  I 
learn  that  the  value  of  the  total  exports  of  farm 
products  for  the  thirty  years^  approximates 
17,128,791,000  dollars.  Adding  to  this  sum  the 
value  of  the  exports  for  the  ten  years,  1900  to 
1909,  to  wit,  9,555,764,000  dollars,  we  have 
26,684,555,000  dollars  as  the  value  of  the  exports 
of  farm  products  for  the  forty  years.  The  exports 
for  the  ten  years  1900  to  1909  were  18.3  per  cent, 
of  the  total  farm  products  of  those  years.  The 
proportion  of  our  farm  products  sent  abroad  is 
diminishing  as  the  years  goby.  Our  population 
is  increasing  and  a  larger  share  of  our  food  is 
consumed  at  home.  In  1900  we  sent  abroad 
21.2  per  cent,  of  our  farm  products,  in  1909  we 
sent,  but  16.2  per  cent.  But  the  change  was  not 
so  rapid  prior  to  1900.  I  think  that  20  per  cent, 
or  one-fifth  would  represent  fairly  the  proportion 
of  the  exports  during  the  forty  years,  1870  to 
1909.  That  is  to  say,  that  of  our  farm  products 
in  the  past  forty  years  we  have  shipped  one-fifth 
abroad  and  have  consumed  four-fifths  at  home. 
Upon  this  basis  the  home  consumption  had  a 
value  of  106,738,220,000  dollars.  The  next 
question  is  how  much  of  the  products  of  the  farm 
consumed  in  our  own  country  did  the  farmers 
themselves  consume  and  how  much  did  they  sell. 
One  would  expect  that  the  Census  reports  would 
show  the  proportion  of  the  people  who  are  on 
farms,  but  they  do  not.  The  part  of  the  popula¬ 
tion  designated  as  rural  in  the  reports  includes 


16 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


the  towns  up  to  4000  inhabitants.  An  idea  of 
the  proportion  is  gotten  from  the  tables  relating 
to  occupations.  In  1840  77  per  cent,  of  the 
persons  to  whom  occupations  were  assigned 
were  engaged  in  agriculture.  By  1870  the  pro¬ 
portion  had  fallen  to  48  per  cent.,  by  1900  to  36 
per  cent,  and  by  the  same  rate  of  decrease  will 
be  30  per  cent,  in  1910.  These  figures  indicate 
the  proportion  of  the  population  on  the  farms. 
I  think  40  per  cent,  is  a  fair  estimate  of  the  pro¬ 
portion  of  the  people  who  have  been  upon  the 
farms,  on  an  average,  during  the  past  40  years. 
I  doubt  whether  they  used  or  consumed  40  per 
cent,  of  the  home  consumption  of  food.  Of  what 
they  sold  part  went  to  feed  horses  in  the  cities 
and  cows  in  the  suburban  dairies.  But  assuming 
that  they  used  40  per  cent,  there  was  left  60  per 
cent,  to  be  sold.  Sixty  per  cent,  of  the  106,738,- 
220,000  dollars  is  64,042,932,000  dollars.  Adding 
to  this  the  value  of  the  exports,  i.  e.  26,684,555,000 
dollars,  we  have  the  sum  of  90,727,487,000 
dollars  as  the  value  of  the  products  sold  from 
the  farms  during  the  past  40  years.  In  exchang¬ 
ing  the  products  represented  by  this  great  sum, 
the  loss  to  the  farmers  was  one  third,  or  30  billion 
dollars.  The  amount  is  more  than  double  all 
the  taxes  the  Government  has  collected  in  the 
forty  years,  and  it  is  one  and  a  half  times  the 
value  given  to  the  farms,  the  implements  and  the 
live  stock  thereon  by  the  Census  of  1900. 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  the  changing  propor¬ 
tions  between  the  value  of  the  farms  and  the 
value  of  the  other  wealth  of  the  country  as  shown 
by  the  several  Census. 


Farms,  Live  Stock,  Implements 


City  Real  Estate,  Factories 


and  Machinery 

Railroads  &c. 

1850 

3,967,343,580 

56% 

3,168,436,648 

44% 

1S60 

7,980,493,063 

49% 

8,179,123,005 

51% 

1870 

8,944,857,746 

37% 

15,109,957,059 

63% 

1880 

12,180,501,538 

28% 

31,461,498,462 

72% 

1890 

16,082,267,689 

25% 

48,954,823,508 

75% 

1900 

20,439,901,164 

23% 

68,077,405,611 

77% 

The  farms,  live  stock,  implements  and  machinery 
thereon  were  about  equal  in  value  to  the  other 
wealth  of  the  country  in  i860.  In  the  forty  years 
following  the  value  of  the  farms  and  the  things 
thereon  grew  from  8  billions  to  20  billions  of 
dollars,  being  a  gain  of  150  per  cent.  During 


the  same  period  the  other  wealth  grew  from  8 
billions  to  68  billions  of  dollars,  a  gain  of  750 
per  cent. 

The  advantage  which  the  factory  has  over  the 
farm  is  well  shown  by  the  following  figures.7  They 
relate  to  the  Census  year  1900. 


Value  of  farms,  live  stock,  &c .  $  20,440,000,000 

Number  of  persons  engaged,  owners, 

laborers.  &c .  10,360  000 

Value  of  products,  prices  of  1900  to  1909.  4,735,780,000 

Capital  in  Manufactures .  8, 97S, 825,000 

Number  of  persons  engaged,  owners, 

workmen,  &c, .  4,958,000 

Value  of  products,  less  cost  of  materials. .  9,465,658,000 


The  capital  in  manufactures  bears  nearly  the 
same  relation  to  the  persons  engaged  as  the 
capital  in  the  farms  bears  to  the  persons  engaged 
on  them.  Stated  in  round  numbers,  in  the  case 
of  the  farms  the  capital  is  2000  dollars  to  each 
person,  while  in  the  case  of  manufactures  the 
capital  is  1800  dollars  to  each  person.  But  the 
results,  the  values  given  to  the  products  are  very 
different.  The  2000  dollars  of  capital  and  the 
one  person  on  the  farms  produce  462  dollars, 
the  1800  dollars  of  capital  and  the  one  person 
in  the  factories  produce  1909  dollars. 

In  the  preceding  paragraph  it  appears  that 
capital  and  labor  in  manufactures  are  rated  four 
and  a  half  times  a,s  high  as  capital  and  labor  in 
agriculture.  There  is  no  just  reason  why  they 
should  be  so  rated.  Capital  and  labor  in  a  factory 
can  be  nothing  different  from  capital  and  labor 
on  a  farm.  Like  compensation  is  due  in  the  two 
places.  In  order  to  compare  the  factories  and 
the  farms  in  point  of  wealth  production  it  is 
necessary  to  bring  both  to  a  common  standard 
or  basis  of  compensation.  We  cannot  bring  the 
products  of  the  farm  up  to  the  basis  of  the  pro¬ 
ducts  of  the  factory,  but  we  can  bring  the  pro¬ 
ducts  of  the  factory  down  to  the  basis  of  the  pro¬ 
ducts  of  the  farm.  To  do  so  is  to  perform  a 
simple  equation.  If  the  products  of  20  billion 
dollars  of  capital  and  io|  millions  of  persons  on 
the  farms  are  worth  4-f  billion  dollars  then  the 

7.  Compiled  from  the  tables  in  the  Statistical  Abstract 
of  the  United  States  for  1909.  Deductions  made  for  cost 
of  materials  as  per  table  95  and  the  note  following  in  said 
abstract. 


17 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


Products  of  9  billion  dollars  of  capital  and  5 
millions  of  persons  in  the  factories  are  worth  2 
billion  dollars.  The  wealth  producing  power 
of  the  factories  is  to  the  wealth  producing  power 
of  the  farms  as  two  is  to  five. 

Agriculture  ranks  first  in  the  production  of 
the  country’s  wealth.  Manufactures  when  justly 
compared,  as  wTe  have  seen,  fall  far  below  agri¬ 
culture  in  wealth  productive  power.  Transporta¬ 
tion,  by  which  is  meant  the  railroads,  canals, 
ships,  etc.,  is  probably  entitled  to  a  place  along 
side  of  manufactures  as  a  source  of  wealth. 
Next  after  these  would  come  the  mines  of  coal, 
iron,  copper,  lead,  gold,  etc.,  then  merchandising, 
then  professional  service  and  lastly  inventions 
and  discoveries.  It  is  not  possible  to  assign  to 
ach  its  proportional  share  of  the  wealth  pro¬ 
duction  in  figures,  but  it  is  a  fair  question  whether 
the  farms  are  not  entitled  to  be  credited  with  one 
half  of  the  whole.  The  areas  of  fertile  land 
yearly  sending  forth  their  great  quantities  of  corn, 
wheat  and  cotton  are  the  chief  spring  of  our 
prosperity.  The  greater  number  of  our  railroads 
are  built  to  carry  the  farmer’s  crops  to  market 
and  to  take  to  him  the  things  he  needs.  The 
volume  of  manufactures  each  year  depends 
largely  upon  the  buying  power  of  the  farmer  and 
the  railroad.  The  merchant  expects  a  good 
season  when  the  farmers  are  prosperous,  and 
the  price  of  stocks  is  sensitive  to  crop  prospects. 

The  past  fifteen  years  has  witnessed  great  in¬ 
creases  in  the  capital  stock  and  bonds  of  the  manu¬ 
facturing  corporations  of  the  country.  This  has 
in  truth  been  largely  the  issuing  of  stock  or  securi¬ 
ties  upon  the  business  which  these  corporations 
expect  to  do  with  the  farmer  at  high  prices.  It 
has  been  not  only  the  mortgaging  of  the  future  of 
the  industrial  properties,  but  the  mortgaging  of 
the  future  of  the  farmer’s  lands  as  well.  For  if  the 
implement  factory  charges  me,  and  must  continue 
to  charge  me,  a  high  price  for  my  machines  in 
order  to  pay  interest  on  its  excessive  issue  of  bonds 
and  stock,  is  not  that  a  mortgage  on  my  farm? 
Is  it  not  as  much  a  charge  as  my  going  on  a 
neighbor’s  bond?  I  think  it  is  worse,  for  my 
neighbor  will  most  likely  pay  the  bond,  but  I 


must  pay  the  debt  created  by  the  high  prices  of 
my  implements.  I  must  have  the  machines,  and 
if  the  high  prices  I  pay  added  to  the  failing 
productiveness  of  my  land  or  to  losses  caused  by 
drouth  or  disease  among  my  animals,  drives  me 
to  the  wall  and  I  lose  my  farm,  has  not  the  im¬ 
plement  factory  foreclosed  its  mortgage?8  I  can 
regard  the  excessive  capitalization  of  the  factory 
in  no  other  light  than  as  an  added  charge  on  all 
who  are  to  use  its  products.  The  farm  is  involved 
in  the  false  marking  up  of  the  value  of  the  mill. 
The  marking  up  means  that  the  farmer  must  pay 
not  the  just  cost  of  the  things  he  buys  of  the  fac¬ 
tory  but  much  added  cost  for  interest  on  bonds  and 
dividends  on  stock  which  should  never  have  been 
issued. 

It  has  been  said  that  tariff  protection  is  father 
to  the  trust.  I  think  this  statement  is  true  in  the 
case  of  many  of  the  so-called  trusts.  There  may 
be  a  trust  or  monopoly  which  has  no  connection 
with  tariff  protection  but  the  trusts  of  which  there 
is  most  complaint  are  the  combinations  made  by 
manufacturers  to  protect  themselves  against  over¬ 
production  and  the  cutting  of  prices.  Factories 
have  greatly  multiplied  and  the  competition 
among  them  has  threatened  to  take  awTav  the 
advantage  given  by  the  tariff  laws.  Nurtured 
in  the  warmth  of  protection  against  the  outside 
world  it  is  to  be  expected  that  the  manufacturer 
should  try  to  escape  the  cold  of  competition  at 
home.  He  reasons  that  if  the  tariff  laws  protect 
him  against  the  foreign  competitor  he  is  justified 
in  protecting  himself  against  the  home  competitor. 
It  can,  however,  be  said  for  the  manufacturing 
trusts  that  they  have  not  exacted  higher  prices 
than  the  tariff  laws  authorize  and  that  if  high 
profits  to  manufacturers  and  high  wages  to  his 
workmen  are  signal  benefits  to  the  country  it 
can  make  little  difference  whether  these  things 
are  secured  by  the  instrumentality  of  the  tariff 
laws  or  of  the  organized  trusts.  And  it  is  proper 
to  ask  whether  the  tariff  laws  have  not  brought 

8.  The  farmer  has  no  control  over  the  rains  and  has 
but  little  control  over  the  diseases  which  attack  his  live 
stock,  but  he  has  some  voice  in  the  legislative  bodies 
which  frame  the  laws  governing  corporations,  their  stock 
issues  and  profits. 


18 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


about  the  very  state  of  things  against  which  we 
protest  in  the  trusts.  Are  high  prices  and  inflated 
values  benefits  when  created  by  the  tariff  laws 
but  evils  when  upheld  by  the  trusts?  I  think 
there  is  no  distinction.  Monopoly  is  equally 
obnoxious  whether  it  exists  by  means  of  statute 
law  or  by  combination  of  rivals  in  secret  cham¬ 
bers.9 

I  have  been  much  impressed  by  a  remark  made 
by  John  Stuart  Mill,  that  the  distribution  of 
wealth  is  a  matter  of  human  institution  solely. 
When  thinking  of  the  condition  of  society,  its 
wealth  so  concentrated,  the  few  rich  with  so  much 
and  the  great  mass  of  the  people  with  so  little  by 
comparison,  we  are  apt  to  regard  the  circumstance 
as  one  of  divine  ordering.  We  overlook  the  fact 
that  much  of  the  wealth  concentration  is  the 
result  of  ideas  or  policies  expressed  in  our  laws. 
That  is  what  Mr.  Mill  meant  when  he  said  that  the 
distribution  of  wealth  is  a  matter  of  human 
institution  solely.  If  we  were  to  search  out  the 
origin  of  the  great  fortunes  or  aggregations  of 
wealth  in  the  country  we  would  find  that  the 
majority  of  them  trace  either  to  nature’s  gifts  or 
to  privileges  given  by  our  laws.  The  finding  of 
deposits  of  valuable  ore  and  fields  of  petroleum 
oil  and  the  occuping  of  fertile  lands  are  the  more 
important  instances  of  opportunities  afforded  by 
nature’s  bounty.  The  granting  of  patents  upon 
inventions  and  the  conferring  of  the  right  to  take 
increased  prices  upon  manufactured  things  are 

9.  The  combination  or  monopoly  idea  permeates  busi¬ 
ness  much  more  than  the  farmers  of  the  country  realize. 
A  story  told  me  by  a  city  friend  is  in  point.  Said  he, 

‘  1  have  a  neighbor,  a  young  man  who  having  a  few 
thousand  dollars  several  years  ago  started  a  little  foundry 
for  the  manufacture  of  a  much  used  casting.  He  did  very 
well  and  stated  to  me  recently  that  he  was  making  thirty  per 
cent,  upon  his  capital.  A  few  weeks  after  this  I  met  my 
neighbor  in  New  York.  Surprised  to  see  him  1  asked 
what  brought  him  there.  He  said,  Oh,  there  is  a  meet¬ 
ing  of  the  men  who  make  the  same  thing  that.  Y  do;  there 
are  eighteen  of  us  and  we  are  going  to  get  together;  we 
can  make  more  money  that  way.”  Although  the  common 
law  is  very  pronounced  against  combinations  to  restrain 
trade  and  to  raise  prices  and  there  are  many  laws  on  our 
statute  books  upon  the  subject  of  fnonopolies,  compara¬ 
tively  little  has  been  done  in  preventing  the  evils.  There 
would  seem  to  have  been  lacking  a  proper  enforcement 
of  the  law's.  There  is  a  cry  for  their  modification.  I  think 
there  is  more  need  of  seeing  to  it  that  they  are  properly 
observed. 


the  chief  instances  of  opportunities  created  by  the 
laws.  The  principle  of  granting  patents  upon 
inventions  is  a  just  and  wise  one.  Inventions 
greatly  advance  the  arts,  they  increase  the  com¬ 
forts  of  the  people,  they  reduce  the  cost  of  things 
and  they  augment  materially  the  store  of  wealth. 
The  field  of  discovery  and  improvement  in  the 
arts  is  a  very  broad  one:  of  things  which  are  both 
new  and  good  we  can  never  have  too  many. 
Aside  from  securing  to  the  inventor  the  fruits  of 
his  genius  and  toil  the  patent  laws  have  served 
a  most  excellent  purpose  in  the  past  and  must 
continue  to  do  so  in  the  future.  I  wish  as  much 
could  be  said  of  the  protection  of  the  tariff  laws, 
but  it  cannot.  Protection  in  its  inception  had 
relation  to  special  circumstances  which  have  long 
since  ceased  and  was  even  then  of  doubtful 
propriety.  It  could  not  have  lived  beyond  the 
day  of  those  special  circumstances  had  it  not  been 
strenuously  upheld  by  those  who  derived  from 
it  a  direct  profit.  Capital  is  now  and  has  long 
been  abundant:  the  infants  which  the  tariff  laws 
were  framed  to  nourish  are  full  grown,  in  fact, 
have  become  giants.  The  things  made  in  the 
factory  are  no  more  worthy  of  favor  or  privileged 
price  than  the  things  grown  on  the  farm  or  the 
things  produced  from  the  mine.  Protection  as 
it  now  exists  is  in  no  sense  a  creator  of  wealth. 
As  between  the  farmer  and  the  manufacturer 
its  office  is  that  of  transferring  part  of  the  wealth 
of  the  one  over  to  the  other  without  consideration. 
The  effect  of  the  high  profits  to  the  owner  of  the 
factory  as  against  the  low  profits  to  the  owner 
of  the  farm  is  that  of  dividing  the  wealth  created 
by  the  farm  between  its  owner  and  the  owner 
of  the  factory. 

There  is  a  great  difference  between  transferring 
wealth  and  creating  it.  If  I  and  my  neighbor  agree 
together  to  exchange  our  farm  products  for  a 
number  of  years  upon  the  basis  of  30  per  cent, 
profit  to  me  upon  my  products  and  5  per  cent, 
to  him  upon  his  products,  no  wealth  is  created 
by  the  fact  that  I  get  so  much  profit  out  of  the 
exchange.  But  a  most  important  result  of 
such  a  method  of  trading  is  that  I  win  off  my 
neighbor  a  part  of  his  wealth  each  year.  If  he  has 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER . 


19 


no  other  resource  or  means  of  payment,  he  will,  in 
the  course  of  a  few  years,  turn  over  his  farm  to 
me.  I  will  then  own  two  farms  and  he  will  have 
none.  But  not  a  penny  of  wealth  has  been  created 
or  brought  into  existence  by  what  has  taken 
place.  I  may  instead  of  taking  my  neighbor’s 
farm  demand  the  money  and  may  use  it  in  build¬ 
ing  a  house  in  the  city  but  the  result  will  be  the 
same.  The  city  property  will  represent  the  farm 
which  my  neighbor  has  lost.  The  high  profit 
to  me  as  against  the  low  profit  to  him  results 
simply  in  transferring  his  property  to  me.  And 
such  I  conceive  to  be  the  working  of  the  protective 
system.  It  does  not  add  one  iota  to  the  fund  of  the 
country’s  wealth,  but  by  a  slow  and  certain  pro¬ 
cess  it  transfers  that  wealth  to  the  possession  of 
those  whom  it  licenses  to  take  the  high  profits. 

Mr.  Charles  B.  Spahr,  a  student  of  economics, 
some  years  ago  made  some  studies  relating  to  the 
distribution  of  the  wealth  of  the  country.  His 
figures  were  deduced  from  the  Census  reports  of 
1890  and  the  tax  lists  of  certain  of  the  large  cities. 
He  treated  the  population  by  families  or  house¬ 
holds,  of  which  there  were  then  twelve  and  a  half 
millions.  The  wealth  of  the  country  was  then 
sixty-five  billion  dollars.  Of  this  Mr.  Spahr 
estimated  that  thirty-three  billion  dollars  was 
owned  by  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand 
families;  that  is  to  say  that  more  than  one  half 
of  the  wealth  of  the  country  was  vested  in  one 
family  out  of  every  one  hundred  of  the  population. 
He  did  not  have  a  great  deal  of  data  upon  which 
to  base  his  conclusions  but  they  are,  to  say  the 
least,  suggestive.  That  a  very  large  share  of  the 
wealth  is  in  the  hands  of  a  comparatively  few 
persons  and  that  the  institution  which  we  call 
the  protective  system  has  been  the  largest  factor 
in  this  concentration  I  think  no  one  will  gainsay 
nor  deny.  If  it  had  been  the  design  of. the  Govern¬ 
ment  to  carry  the  wealth  arising  from  the  most 
abundant  resources  and  the  labor  of  the  whole 
people  over  to  a  small  fraction  of  the  population, 
no  better  scheme  for  effecting  it  could  have  been 
devised  than  the  protective  system.  No  truer 
exemplification  of  Mr.  Mill’s  dictum  can  be 
found  in  history  than  the  working  of  our  tar  iff  laws. 


Wealth  or  capital  when  massed  together  has 
great  absorbing  and  ruling  power.  Nothing 
gains  wealth  faster  or  more  surely  than  wealth 
does.  It  is  hard  for  those  who  have  no  property 
to  get  any,  but  comparatively  easy  for  those  who 
have  large  estates  to  add  to  them.  The  interest 
bearing  power  of  money  is  very  great  but  one 
must  first  have  money  before  he  can  receive  any 
interest.  Wealth  or  capital  is  in  a  sense  like  one 
of  nature’s  forces;  its  power  is  within  itself. 
It  is  a  thing  apart  from  its  ownership  and  it  is 
very  aggressive.  It  holds  possession  of  the  best 
channels  of  investment  and  its  volume  protects 
it  from  damaging  losses.  It  has  ready  money 
to  use  when  trade  is  active  and  it  can  gather  in 
the  bargains  when  trade  is  depressed.  When 
confronted  by  the  anti-trust  laws  it  can  change 
the  form  of  its  organization  and  go  on  doing  busi¬ 
ness  as  before.  In  time  of  financial  crisis  or 
panic  it  expects  the  Government  to  come  to 
its  relief.  It  furnishes  the  money  to  carry  elec¬ 
tions  and  keeps  a  heavy  hand  upon  those  who 
make  and  those  who  administer  the  laws.  Capi¬ 
tal  dictates  the  banking  laws  and  upholds  the 
tariff  laws  but  it  resists  the  tax  laws  when  directed 
towards  its  own  treasuries.  The  persons  who 
appear  before  the  committees  of  Congress  are 
not  the  learned  economists  f  rom  the  colleges  who 
study  the  science  of  government  and  the  welfare 
of  the  whole  people  but  the  representatives  of 
the  capital  interests  who  have  come  to  sustain 
some  advantage  already  enjoyed  or  to  ask  for 
some  new  favor. 

When  the  two  things,  the  extent  to  which  the 
wealth  of  the  country  has  become  concentrated 
and  the  power  which  wealth  has  within  itself, 
are  considered  I  think  there  is  just  cause  of 
alarm.  The  equality  of  the  people  which  has 
distinguished  our  civilization  cannot  long  con¬ 
tinue  to  exist.  The  opportunity  which  has  been 
open  to  every  one  in  the  past  of  acquiring  a  com¬ 
petence  of  wealth  will  greatly  diminish.  An 
aristocracy  of  wealth  with  the  great  part  of  the 
people  serving  is  in  prospect.  The  country  is  no 
longer  new.  Its  lands  are  occupied,  its  cities 
and  railroads  are  built.  We  must  of  necessity 


20 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


move  more  slowly  hereafter.  In  the  changed 
state  of  things  the  advantage  will  be  more  and 
more  with  wealth  and  less  and  less  with  the 
individual. 

The  inflated  and  false  condition  engendered  by 
the  protective  principle  prevents  the  sale  of  our 
manufactures  in  other  countries.  Our  prices  are 
too  high.  Several  years  ago  I  was  in  Panama  and 
visited  a  ranch  on  the  south  coast  belonging  to  a 
gentleman  who  came  there  from  California.  He 
had  just  received  some  machinery  from  Paris, 
France.  I  said  to  him,  “I  wonder  that  you  did 
not  order  this  stuff  from  San  Francisco  or  New 
York,  since  you  are  from  the  States.”  But  his 
reply  was,  “Oh  no,  I  would  have  had  to  pay  two 
prices,  I  never  order  anything  from  the  States  that 
I  can  get  elsewhere.”  Our  resources  in  coal  and 
iron,  the  two  valuable  things  in  manufactures,  are 
very  great  and  we  should  long  since  have  taken 
first  rank  in  supplying  the  world  with  manu¬ 
factured  things.  But  we  early  put  up  the  wall  of 
protection  and  have  kept  building  it  higher  and 
higher  and  in  consequence  have  made  little  pro¬ 
gress  in  marketing  our  wares  beyond  our  own 
doors.  As  long  as  the  manufacturer  has  had  a 
good  volume  of  trade  at  home  and  at  most  profit¬ 
able  prices  he  has  not  sought  trade-in  other 
countries.  It  has  been  easier  to  attend  at  Wash¬ 
ington  and.  see  to  it  that  the  lash  of  the  tariff  laws 
is  kept  in  motion  and  high  prices  at  home  as¬ 
sured.  I  think  however  that  the  manufacturer 
is  coming  to  recognize  that  he  must  look  abroad 
for  much  of  his  trade.  He  will  want  to  do  more 
business  than  the  home  markets  afford  him. 
Moreover,  there  is  need  of  more  employment  for 
the  people  who  live  in  the  cities  and  towns  than 
now  exists.  I  think  the  abandonment  of  the 
protective  system  will  do  much  to  stay  the  passing 
of  the  population  from  the  farms  to  the  cities. 
But  I  have  little  faith  in  the  return  to  the  farms 
of  the  masses  now  in  the  cities  and  towns.  Nor 
will  their  descendants  likely  come  to  the  farms. 
I  doubt  whether  in  succeeding  census  more  than 
one-third  of  the  population  will  be  found  upon 
the  farms.  A  large  number  of  our  people  in  the 
towns  and  cities  will  be  dependent  upon  the 


factories  for  employment  and  the  goods  made 
will  exceed  the  quantity  which  the  country  can 
consume  or  use.  A  market  for  a  part  must  be 
found  in  other  countries.  Our  mills  have  already 
multiplied  beyond  the  home  requirement  and 
some  goods  are  being  disposed  of  in  foreign 
markets.10  Complaint  is  made  among  our  own 
people  because  these  goods  are  sold  at  lower 
prices  than  are  charged  at  home.  The  manu¬ 
facturer  will  plead  that  he  makes  the  sales  in 
order  to  furnish  work  for  his  employees  at  times 
when  the  mills  would  otherwise  be  idle.  The 
fact  that  our  goods  are  sold  abroad  at  less  money 
than  the  people  at  home  pay  is  a  most  telling 
comment  upon  our  protective  system.  Tariff 
protection  is  thus  made  to  serve  the  interest  of 
the  people  of  other  countries  at  the  expense  of  our 
own  people.  The  high  prices  we  pay  at  home 
make  it  possible  for  the  manufacturer  to  sell  at 
the  low  prices  in  other  countries.  The  matter  of 
the  two  prices  is  discreditable  to  the  manufacturer 
and  discloses  the  anomalous  condition  into  which 
our  manufacturers  have  come.  Under  it  there 
can  be  little  progress  in  building  up  a  foreign 
trade.  The  sale  of  our  goods  abroad  cannot 
assume  any  very  great  proportions  until  our 
cost  of  production  is  reduced.  We  must  have 
lower  wages,  lower  cost  of  transportation,  lower 
profits  and  lower  capitalizations.  The  change 
will  begin  with  the  cost  of  taking  the  coal  and 
the  ore  from  the  mines  and  the  wood  from  the 
forests  and  will  extend  to  every  process  through 

10.  A  couple  of  years  ago  I  was  making  a  journey  in  the 
South.  The  train  made  a  stop  at  an  Alabama  town  where 
there  was  a  large  cotton  factory.  One  of  the  persons  who 
got  on  the  car  at  this  station  sat  down  beside  me.  I  said 
to  him  that  I  was  curious  to  know  what  was  done  with 
the  goods  made  at  the  many  cotton  mills  now  in  the  South. 
He  replied  that  he  could  speak  for  the  mill  1  had  just  seen, 
that  he  was  its  manager:  and  then  told  me  that  they  had 
finished  putting  a  shipment  of  goods  on  the  cars  that 
afternoon  which  was  bound  for  China  and  that  the  ship¬ 
ment  made  almost  a  train  load  of  itself.  I  afterwards 
learned  that  the  company  owning  the  mill  in  question 
had  other  mills  in  New  England.  These  mills  iri  the  South 
employ  people  from  the  mountains  and  the  poor  land  area 
and  pay  very  low  wages.  The  mill  I  have  mentioned  ran 
upon  coal  mined  from  the  hill  near  by.  With  cheap  labor 
and  cheap  fuel  it  could  certainty  make  cotton  goods  at  low 
cost.  And  the  goods  were  going  to  China,  a  country  of 
low  prices.  The  goods  made  in  the  New  England  factories 
doubtless  go  to  our  own  people  at  the  usual  tariff  prices. 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


21 


which  materials  go  until  they  become  finished 
products.11  The  change  will  also  affect  other 
things.  The  workman  can  no  longer  be  charged 
a  double  price  for  the  food  he  eats,  the  clothing 
he  wears  or  the  tenement  he  rents.12  Service  in  all 
lines  will  be  rated  lower  and  profits  will  be  smaller. 
We  must  make  our  things  at  a  cost  which  will 
allow  them  to  be  sold  in  competition  with  like 
things  made  in  other  countries.  And  so  the 
necessity  of  broadening  the  market  for  our 
manufactures  and  providing  employment  for 
the  hosts  of  our  people  in  the  towns  and  cities 
points  to  the  wisdom  of  abandoning  the  pro¬ 
tective  system.  The  reform  in  our  tariff  laws 
which  justice  to  our  agricultural  interests  requires 
will  remove  the  bar  to  a  substantial  and  lasting 
trade  in  our  manufactured  things  in  the  markets 
of  the  world. 

Since  tariff  protection  is  directed  towards 
manufactures  the  prices  of  which  it  greatly 
raises  and  not  towards  farm  products  the  prices 
of  which  are  left  to  their  natural  course,  such 
protection  has  created  a  divided  or  double  stand¬ 
ard  of  values.  The  factory  furnishes  a  standard 
of  value  which  is  different  from  the  standard  of 
the  farm.  The  productions  of  the  farm  arise 
from  just  wages  and  small  profits:  the  production 
of  the  factory  involve  high  wages  and  large  profits. 
The  values  given  to  farm  products  are  incontes- 
tible,  they  are  good  values.  The  values  given  to 
the  products  of  the  factory  are  open  to  question, 
they  are  by  comparison  not  good  values.  Once 
before  we  had  two  standards.  It  was  during  the 
Civil  War  and  the  years  immediately  following, 
and  related  not  to  the  values  attached  to  com¬ 


11.  The  extent  to  which  wages  anrl  protit  enter  into  the 
price  of  manufactures  is  well  illustrated  by  the  case  of 
iron  and  steel  products.  The  ore  from  which  the  iron  and 
steel  are  derived  is  worth  in  royalty  when  being  taken 
from  the  mine  about  one  dollar  per  ton  of  iron  or  steel. 
When  the  iron  or  steel  reaches  the  farmer  in  the  form  of  a 
corn  planter  or  a  wheat  drill  it  sells  for  more  than  one 
hundred  dollars  a  ton.  In  the  coarser  forms  of  steel  such 
as  rails  and  beams,  the  prices  are  from  28  dollars  to  33 
dollars  per  ton.  From  this  it  appears  how  necessary  it  is 
that  reductions  be  made  all  along  the  line,  if  there  is  to  be 
any  material  change  in  the  prices  of  the  finished  products. 

12.  The  question  with  regard  to  the  wage  earner  is 
not  what  money  he  or  she  gets  for  the  days  work,  but 
how  much  of  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life. 


modifies  but  to  the  credit  given  to  the  money  in 
circulation.  We  had  not  then  a  good  money 
system.  There  was  some  gold,  but  the  money 
was  chiefly  the  notes  of  state  banks  and  the 
greenbacks  which  the  Government  had  issued 
as  a  war  measure.  Neither  the  bank  notes  nor  the 
greenbacks  were  esteemed  of  equal  value  with 
the  gold,  so  there  were  the  two  standards.  The 
business  of  the  country  followed  the  less  valuable 
standard,  the  paper  money.  Prices  rose  greatly 
and  possessions  of  every  kind  were  rated  much 
above  the  values  given  them  before  and  after  the 
period  mentioned.  The  time  of  reckoning  began 
with  the  panic  of  1873.  Seven  years  of  stagna¬ 
tion  in  business,  of  falling  prices,  of  financial 
failures  and  of  suffering  among  the  people  served 
to  purge  affairs  of  the  inflation  and  to  again 
establish  the  single  standard.  The  greenback 
movement,  a  factor  in  politics  from  1876  until 
1884,  threatened  to  extend  the  existence  of  the 
double  money  standard  and  to  revive  the  inflation. 
Fortunately  nothing  came  of  it.  The  contest 
over  the  free  coinage  of  silver,  a  second  inflation 
movement,  was  more  formidable.  It  was, 
however,  of  short  duration  being  decisively 
settled  in  the  election  of  1896  against  the  coinage. 
Had  silver  been  given  the  place  demanded  for  it 
we  would  again  have  had  a  double  money 
standard.  Trade  would  have  followed  the  less 
valuable  standard,  the  silver,  prices  would  have 
gone  skyward  and  possessions  would  have  been 
rated  artificially  and  falsely.  The  inflation  grow¬ 
ing  out  of  the  double  money  standard  in  the  war 
period  affected  all  possessions  and  employments 
alike.  The  inflation  arising  from  the  tariff  laws 
is  not  thus  universal  but  it  is  more  deeply  seated 
and  insidious.  Ours  is  a  house  divided  against 
itself.  The  factory  and  its  people  are  against 
the  farm  and  its  people.  As  in  the  War  period 
trade  has  adopted  the  less  valuable,  the  question¬ 
able  standard.  High  wages,  high  profits  and  high 
values  pervade  merchandising  and  construction 
as  well  as  manufacturing.  The  high  prices  rule 
everywhere  except  in  the  sale  by  the  farmer  of 
his  products.  The  manufacturer,  the  merchant  and 
the  contractor  give  silver,  the  farmer  gives  gold. 


22 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


I  think  that  we  will  return  to  the  single  stand¬ 
ard,  the  standard  of  the  farm,  with  its  good  value. 
It  must  of  necessity  come  and  for  two  reasons: 
first,  the  people  are  losing  faith  in  the  false 
standard.  The  principle  which  must  govern 
in  the  end  is  that  of  the  best  value.  Every  man 
loves  full  measure.  Even  the  savage  perceives 
the  quality  of  his  bargains  and  no  degree  of  civili¬ 
zation  can  reconcile  a  man  to  the  paying  of  a 
double  price.  The  just  exchange  appeals  to  the 
mind  as  strongly  as  the  possession  of  property. 
Unfair  exchanges  break  up  trade;  enforced 
exchanges  are  usually  robbery*  Second,  the 
manufacturing  and  the  business  interests  of  the 
country  have  outgrown  the  farming  interest 
although  largely  dependent  upon  it.  The  pro¬ 
ducts  of  the  factory  are  easily  increased,  the 
products  of  the  farm  are  diminishing  relatively 
to  the  consumption.  Trade  is  slack,  the  factories 
are  partially  idle,  many  workmen  are  on  half 
time!  The  farmer  cannot  increase  his  purchases 
at  the  old  prices  and  thus  make  more  work  for 
the  factory.  Nor  can  the  products  of  the  fac¬ 
tory  be  sold  abroad  because  of  the  high 
prices.  These  things  certainly  point  to  the 
going  out  of  the  standard  of  the  factory  and  its 
high  prices,  and  the  adherence  to  the  one  standard 
of  good  value,  the  standard  of  the  farm. 

It  was  the  acquisition  of  fertile  land  at  nominal 
prices  which  brought  the  people  over  the  sea  in  the 
early  days.  Land  was  to  be  had  at  a  very  little 
cost  beyond  the  labor  of  clearing  it.  The  settlers 
sent  grain  and  tobacco  to  the  old  countries  and  it 
was  natural  that  they  should  take  iron,  cloth  and 
other  manufactures  which  their  wants  required 
or  their  tastes  suggested  in  return.  Aside  from 
cloth  which  could  be  made  in  the  home  very  little 
attention  was  given  to  manufactures.  The  ex¬ 
penses  of  the  Government  made  it  necessary  for 
Congress  to  enact  rates  of  duty  which  appear  low 
to  us  but  appeared  high  to  the  men  of  those  days. 
The  justification  was  that  the  high  rates  would 
encourage  the  building  of  factories  in  our  own 
country,  that  we  ought  to  make  our  own  things, 
not  buy  them,  and  that  having  factories  of  all 
kinds  of  our  own  we  would  be  more  independent 


in  case  of  war  with  any  other  nation.  There  was 
little  capital  in  the  country  except  in  land.  And 
so  the  high  tax  on  imports  with  its  encourage¬ 
ment  or  protection  to  home  factories  early  be¬ 
came  a  national  policy.  But  its  advocates  thought 
of  the  high  rates  as  a  temporary  expedient.  When 
capital  should  become  more  abundant  and  factor¬ 
ies  had  become  established  it  was  expected  that 
Congress  would  withdraw  the  favors  to  manu¬ 
facturers.  The  Civil  War  with  its  great  need  for 
funds  postponed  the  withdrawal  and  served  to 
strengthen  the  hold  of  the  protected  interests 
upon  the  advantages  they  enjoyed.  This  hold 
although  several  times  attacked  has  never  been 
broken.  That  it  has  not  been  is  owing,  it  seems  to 
me,  to  the  apathy  of  the  people  and  their  lack  of 
knowledge  of  the  harmful  effects  of  protection  as 
it  has  existed  since  its  proper  purpose  was  served. 

From  the  formation  of  the  Union  until  the 
Civil  War  the  nation’s  revenues  came  almost 
wholly  from  the  duties  collected  upon  things 
imported  from  other  countries.  Not  only  the 
restrictions  of  the  Constitution,  but  the  sentiment 
of  the  people  of  the  States  prevented  the  taxing  of 
the  lands  and  the  products  of  the  country  for  the 
support  of  the  central  government.  Congress 
several  times  passed  bills  authorizing  such  taxa¬ 
tion  but  these  were  with  slight  exceptions  soon 
repealed.  Not  until  the  war  made  it  necessary  to 
greatly  increase  the  revenues  was  there  any 
earnest  resort  to  excise  or  internal  taxes.  Once 
introduced  these  internal  taxes  have  grown  until 
they  now  almost  equal  the  taxes  raised  from  im¬ 
ports.  The  average  of  the  internal  taxes  for  the 
ten  years  ending  with  1908  was  261  million  dollars 
a  year.  The  average  of  the  taxes  or  duties  on 
imports  for  the  same  ten  years  was  266  million 
dollars  a  year.  The  chief  subjects  of  the  internal 
taxes  are  liquors  and  tobacco.  The  loss  in  revenue 
caused  by  the  removal  of  the  protective  duties 
can  be  made  up  by  extending  the  internal  taxes  to 
other  subjects  than  liquors  and  tobacco,  and 
by  placing  a  tax  upon  incomes.  This  last 
is  a  just  method  of  raising  a  revenue  because 
it  falls  most  heavily  upon  those  who  are  best 
able  to  pay.  An  amendment  is  now  before  the 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


23 


legislatures  of  the  several  states  which  is  intended 
to  remove  the  limitation  of  the  Constitution 
relating  to  direct  taxes  from  taxes  on  incomes. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  will  be  ratified  by  the 
necessary  three-fourths  of  the  states. 

I  think  that  as  a  nation  we  have  come  to  take 
too  little  account  of  our  agriculture.  As  things 
are  the  farm  and  its  people  are  expected  to  shift 
for  themselves.  They  tag  on  behind  as  it  were. 
The  world  of  manufactures  and  the  world  of 
business  occupy  first  place.  In  the  mind  of  the 
average  man  they  are  the  principal  things. 
Even  the  men  who  lead  in  finance  and  those  who 
are  charged  with  the  duty  of  governing  the 
country  take  little  thought  for  the  farm.  It  is  a 
habit  to  regard  the  spring  of  prosperity  as  lying 
in  the  factory  and  in  the  avenues  of  commerce. 
The  mill  or  the  counting  house,  not  the  farm, 
makes  the  fortune.  In  times  of  depression  the 
changes  are  rung  as  to  the  causes  of  the  idleness 
of  the  factory,  the  scarcity  of  money  and  the 
dullness  of  trade.  The  earnings  made  by  the 
railroads  are  in  financial  circles  of  much  greater 
moment  than  the  incomes  of  the  several  millions 
of  farmers.  My  city  friends  disclose  their  esti¬ 
mate  of  the  farm  by  the  comforting  remark, 
‘l  There  is  nothing  in  farming,  is  there?”  The 
protective  system  is  defended  upon  the  theory 
of  direct  benefits  to  the  manufacturer  with  inci¬ 
dental  benefits  to  the  farmer.13  The  proposed 
reciprocity  agreement  with  Canada  is  the  old 
story  of  making  free  with  the  farmer’s  things 
when  advantages  to  other  classes  are  to  be  secured 


13.  I  quote  from  a  published  address  by  James  M 
Swank,  Secretary  of  the  American  Iron  and  Steel  Associa¬ 
tion.  “Admitting  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  the 
allegation  is  true  that  special  legislative  privileges  have 
been  accorded  to  the  manufacturer,  the  ship-builder  and 
the  banker,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  benefits  of  these 
privileges  have  not  been  shared  by  the  farmer.  If  the 
protective  tariff  legislation  has  built  up  domestic  manu¬ 
factures  have  not  the  mills  and  furnaces  and  factories  and 
workshops  created  by  the  legislation  greatly  increased  the 
demand  for  agricultural  products?  Have  not  the  farmers 
grown  with  the  wonderful  development  of  our  manufactur¬ 
ing  industries?  Every  intelligent  farmer  knows  that  the 
protective  tariff  legislation  has  had  just  this  effect.”  This 
is  the  stock  argument  for  protection  in  its  relation  to  the 
farmer.  Rightly  interpreted  it  means  a  feast  for  the  manu¬ 
facturer  with  crumbs  from  the  table  for  the  farmer. 


thereby.14  It  is  high  time  for  the  nation  to  awake 
to  the  perception  that  farming  ranks  first  among 
the  industries  and  that  the  people  engaged  in  it 
are  entitled  to  equal  consideration  with  the  other 
classes.  If  there  is  nothing  in  farming,  as  my 
city  friends  express  it,  then  the  farmer  must 
leave  the  farm  or  he  must  go  down  in  the  scale 
of  manhood  through  discouragement,  loss  of 
energy  and  the  narrow  conditions.  The  nation 
can  afford  neither  of  these  things.  She  does  not 
want  her  farms  abandoned  nor  her  farmer  class 
to  become  weak.  She  does  not  want  the  supply 
of  food  to  shorten  nor  the  capital  interests  to 
take  over  the  farms.  The  nation’s  best  interest 
lies  in  the  success  of  the  farm  and  the  encourage¬ 
ment  of  its  owner.  Our  agriculture  has  been 
the  main  factor  in  our  progress  in  the  past,  it 
must  continue  to  be  so  in  the  future.  There  is  no 
reason  why  the  farm  should  be  discriminated 
against  or  its  owner  made  to  carry  an  unjust 
burden. 

14.  By  the  reciprocity  agreement  the  tariff  duties  on 
manufactures  are  lowered  and  the  duties  on  farm  products 
practically  abolished  as  between  the  two  countries.  The 
result  of  the  agreement  will  be  the  larger  sale  in  Canada 
of  goods  manufactured  in  the  United  States  and  the  entry 
into  the  United  States  of  quantities  of  farm  products  from 
Canada.  Canada  like  the  United  States  is  a  protective 
tariff  country.  She  is  principally  agricultural  and  does 
not  do  much  in  manufactures.  When  she  looks  toward 
the  United  States  aud  observes  that  two-thirds  of  our 
people  are  in  the  cities  and  towns  and  that  our  consumption 
of  food  is  increasing  relatively  faster  than  its  production 
our  markets  for  food  must  appear  attractive  to  her.  With 
regard  to  our  own  farmers  the  duties  on  farm  products 
written  in  our  tariff  laws  have  in  the  past  been  largely 
a  dead  letter  in  increasing  the  prices  received  by  them. 
Rut  the  moment  the  country  reaches  the  point  of  consum¬ 
ing  more  food  than  she  produces  the  duties  on  the  part 
brought  in  will  raise  the  price  of  that  produced  at  home 
and  the  farmer  will  be  benefited  by  the  tariff  just  as  the 
manufacturer  now  is.  If  however  the  reciprocity  agree¬ 
ment  becomes  operative  the  prospective  benefit  to  our 
farmers  will  be  taken  away.  Farm  stuff  will  flow  in  from 
Canada  in  abundance  duty  free  and  our  farmers  will  remain 
in  bondage.  They  will  continue  to  sell  at  free  trade  prices 
while  buying  at  tariff  prices.  When  Lthe  reciprocity 
bill  was  before  Congress  the  Democrats  looked  upon 
it  as  an  important  step  in  tariff  reform  and  thought 
to  compensate  our  farmers  by  passing  the  Farmers’ 
Free  List  bill.  But  Mr.  Taft  promptly  vetoed  the 
farmers’  bill.  If  the  protective  system  is  to  be  thrown 
overboard  this  agreement  with  Canada  (it  has  not  yet 
been  approved  by  Canada)  cannot  do  our  farmers  much 
hurt.  But  the  system  is  not  likely  to  be  cast  off  immediate¬ 
ly;  we  will  have  it  for  awhile  yet. 


24 


THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  FARMER. 


APPENDIX 


List  Of  Imports  Subject  To  Duties. 


Year  Ending  June  30,  1909. 


Duties 


Values 

Amount 

Average  Rate 

Sugar  and  Molasses . 

.  $93,379,021 

$56,362,789 

60.36 

Wool,  Raw . 

.  34,758,788 

17,082,990 

49.12 

“  Manufactures . 

. .  18,048,453 

16,278,828 

90.20 

Cotton  Manufactures . 

.  61,902,662 

33,060,402 

51.41 

Fibers . 

.  50.385,870 

18,438,161 

36.59 

Chemicals  and  Drugs . 

.  31,817,870 

7,360,396 

23.13 

Wood  and  Its  Manufactures . 

.  31,980,328 

4,033,289 

12.61 

Silk  and  Its  Manufactures . 

.  30,486,367 

16,186,131 

53.09 

Iron  and  Steel  and  Ore . 

.  24.172,807 

8,855,382 

35.38 

Diamonds . 

.  24,147,124 

2,497,521 

10.34 

Tobacco . 

.  27,332,038 

23,269,458 

85.14 

Liquors,  Wines  and  Spirits . 

.  21,856,363 

15,650,113 

71.60 

Hides . 

.  20,344,975 

3,034,736 

14.92 

Furs  and  Feathers . 

.  20,015,800 

5,880,714 

28.25 

Meats  and  Breadstuff's . 

.  19,134,660 

6,526,912 

34.11 

Fruits  and  Nuts . . . 

.  16,888,802 

5,922,309 

36.55 

Leather  and  Tanned  Skins . 

.  13,693,297 

4,966,475 

36.27 

Earthen  Ware,  China  and  Glass . 

.  14,934.701 

8,537,054 

57.16 

Vegetables . 

.  12,569,477 

4,955,805 

39.43 

Fish . 

.  10,524,097 

1,968,657 

18.71 

Paper  and  Manufactures  of . 

.  11,476,962 

2,875,092 

25.05 

Miscellaneous . 

.  92,415,404 

30,938,145 

33.48 

Totals. .  . . : . 

. $682,265,866 

$294,377,360 

43.15 

Imports  Free  Of  Duties. 
Year  Ending  June  30,  1909. 


Values 

Silk,  raw . $  80,139,348 

Coffee .  79,103,933 

India  Rubber .  64,735,438 

Hides .  54,692,017 

Chemicals .  46,092,201 

Copper .  37,763,798 

Fibers .  27,667,273 

Tin .  26,010,350 

Tea .  18,628,390 

Cotton,  Raw .  14,844,321 

Cocoa .  14,830,511 

Fruits  and  Nuts,  no  duty .  14,035,029 

Oils .  12,477,019 

Furs .  11,652,619 

Wood .  11,329,526 

Miscellaneous .  72,835,027 


Total . $586,836,801 


The  duties  collected  for  the  year  ending  June  30th, 
1910  averaged  41.52  per  cent,  or  1.53  per  cent,  less  than 
the  average  of  the  previous  year.  During  ten  and  a  half 
months  of  the  new  year  the  duties  were  under  the  Payne- 
Aldrich  law  of  1909.  The  changes  made  by  this  law  were 
chiefly  that  the  hides  not  already  on  the  free  list  were  put  on 
it  and  the  duties  on  iron  and  steel  and  iron  ore  were  reduced. 
With  these  exceptions  the  new  law  was  substantially  a 
re-enactment  of  the  old  one. 


Berryville,  Va.,  Sept.  2,  1911 


0112  061619109 


